


Colors Seem to Fade

by 4vrAFangirl



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Eggsy & Roxy Bromance, Eventual Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Harry Hart Lives, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:46:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 24,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4vrAFangirl/pseuds/4vrAFangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy can't recall a time when he couldn't see the world in all it's rich and beautiful colors, which would be great if only he could remember who it was that first opened him up to it. (A Kingsmen Soulmates AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Gary--Eggsy Unwin, was too young when it happened to remember much about the encounter, which is something of a disappointment later when all of his mates slowly start to find theirs and share their stories about meeting their soulmate and the first time that they could see the world in living color. For Eggsy though it's as though it's always been this way. 

He remembers a deep, rather sad but tender-looking pair of brown eyes meeting his, and wonders if the imprint of this memory is why brown is his favorite color, because why the fuck else would anybody choose brown once the whole world of colors opened up to them, but he can't even be entirely sure the whole thing isn't just a dream he concocted to fill in the obvious gap in his childhood memories.

Later he remembers a man's voice that seemed to make his whole body warm and tingle in a new and unfamiliar way, and that-and his mum's shite new boyfriend Dean is enough to scare him into silence about any possibilities of his soulmate for some time. His best mates know enough to know he met his soulmate as a boy and can't remember him, but Eggsy doesn't talk about it and they have since learned better than to ask.

Eggsy still sees color, so whoever he is, he's alive and well somewhere out there in the world. But a bloke with brown eyes is admittedly fuck all to go on. Hell, Dean and half his crew have brown eyes, and if that isn't enough to make Eggsy's whole body shudder-in a completely undesirable way, mind- and want to forget the whole soulmates thing...

Sometimes though, when he's alone, he allows himself to wonder about him, the sort of person that his soulmate might be, what he might be doing, the things and people in his life that are special and important to him... Did he know when it happened? Maybe he'd been caught unawares too, too young to understand or remember when they had met. Would they ever meet again? Would they recognize each other if they did?

Eggsy likes to think they would somehow. That the universe, or fate can't be that much of a vindictive asshole--at least not about something as important as the other half of your soul--although everything in his life experience so far should tell him otherwise. He likes to think that maybe sometimes his soulmate wonders about him too. At least if his soulmate is likewise in the dark he doesn't know what a fuck-up Eggsy actually is; his soulmate didn't meet him and decide, even that early on that he wasn't worth the trouble. Because Eggsy has always been the kind of person-the kind of soul- who would swallow his pride, give the shirt off his back, his very life for the people that he loves, but unfortunately for Eggsy he doesn't seem to inspire the same kind of devotion and unflinching loyalty. His own mother, though he knows she loves him, can't respect or stand up for herself not even for his or lovely Daisy's sake.

But then suddenly there's Harry. The enigma in a posh suit that don't have any business in a neighborhood like this, that somehow manages to spring him from jail after a positively bizarre phone call to that number on the back of the medallion he's had for years Michelle Unwin pointedly avoids looking at or talking about. And he's--well, kicking Dean's mates asses ain't he?

And maybe Harry's only handing them their asses because they interrupted his drink, or offended his delicate sensibilities by implying a guy like him would seek out a rent boy with Eggsy's ugly mug, but for just a moment he allows himself to believe that just maybe Harry's fighting because they impugned the younger man's honor as much as defending he his own.

And once he's indulged that idea, well the fleeting thought about just how hot under the collar the possibility gets him is impossible to push away. Fuck. And what the fuck, the tosser had just been lecturing him about his life choices and letting down a father he could scarcely remember, hadn't he? Fuck him. Oh god, he actually wanted to, Eggsy thought watching the sweeping, graceful and lethal power in his every movement. 

"Shit," he whispered under his breath as the last goon fell to the floor and the older man made his way back to their table, calm as you please, and downed the rest of his pint.

Eggsy was still reeling, trying to pull himself back together, pull his eyes away from watching the bob of the other man's Adam's apple as he swallows the last of his beer, willing his traitorous erection to retreat when Harry was suddenly pointing his 'definitely-not-just-a-wristwatch' at him, causing him to do some furious stammering and maybe a hint of pleading between promises he wouldn't tell a soul. And somewhere in the midst of it, he realized he actually meant it. 

Amusing as the thought of Harry cleaning up the floor with Dean himself might have been, he didn't want anyone else to have to deal with that twat, and especially-although he couldn't really have said why-Harry. Seeming to sense as much the older man backed off, thanked him, and then Harry Hart had left the building, the place where he had grasped Eggsy's shoulder still warm and tingling in his wake while he tried not to be too disappointed about the man's sudden exit.

Maybe, Eggsy thought fleetingly after he'd made it back to the flat, while Dean ignored his mother's shouts and protests grabbing the nearby cleaver from the countertop gesturing towards his neck, he should have let Harry take care of Dean after all. But then suddenly, beyond all imagining he was. Harry's voice filled the room of the small flat's kitchen in the nick of time like some kind of guardian angel. 

Eggsy didn't even have the time to marvel at just how that was possible, to contemplate the warm twitchy feeling in the pit of his stomach hearing the man's voice again, to know that this time he was absolutely sticking up for him, before he was racing out the door and beating a hasty retreat to the shop Harry talked about.

"I've never met a tailor before," he says as he enters the shop, spotting Harry on a nearby couch. "But I know you ain't one."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

When Kingsmen was first conceived agents had to have met their soulmates to even be considered as a potential candidate. An agent who couldn't see color, well it could prove a liability in the field when facing off against someone who could. But that being said, there was ever an unspoken, unrelenting pressure to choose to make the organization their other half, at times even the whole of their lives in the stead of the individual who quite literally colored their lives.

Times had changed since then of course, and as ever it had technology continued to evolve... By the time Harry Hart joined Kingsmen the fact he had yet to find his soulmate was of little consequence, he was the best candidate and passed all their tests, and so he had been made the new Galahad. And he, like every other unmatched agent in the organization was equipped with special contacts to allow them to perceive the colors they couldn't naturally pick up on yet.

He was a professional, so of course the first time Harry put them in- eyes blinking furiously in irritated protest as they adjusted- unlike some of his peers and predecessors, he kept his cool.

Merlin is the only person in the world who knows that night after being fitted with his contacts, once he was alone Harry cried. In part because he was enough of a rookie to forget to turn his glasses off before setting them on his nightstand, but more importantly because Merlin wiped all record of it from the archives before the other even realized his mistake and thought to ask for a kindness from the techie, forever cementing Harry's loyalty and friendship in the many years that would follow after.

It was silly really, Harry knew, he had worked his whole life to get here, this was the culmination of a life-long dream: to do something good, truly make a difference in the world, even if he did so as an unsung hero. But with the elation at the culmination of this dream, also came the disappointment and nagging sense of being cheated of another. His soulmate, if he ever did manage to meet them between his missions and obligations to the Kingsmen, couldn't give to him the same incredible gift they would receive from him. Harry Hart would already know what it was like to live in a world with color.

Harry's always been the practical sort, or he's at least trained himself to be for so long enough by now that nobody except perhaps Merlin could contest it isn't his first instinct. But the truth is when he puts forward Lee Unwin as his nomination for the Lancelot, as confident as he is that he might be perfect for the position, he kind of loathes the man just a little bit. 

He's jealous of him, he realizes one not so remarkable day while watching him from afar training with the other recruits. Lee wants this job, wants to prove himself, but it isn't his whole life, and even if he does become the new Lancelot it's already clear he's not about to let go of what he's got. His soulmate Michelle, and what their young son Gary is up to now are his favorite things to talk about. He knows the world in brilliant technicolor because Michelle opened his eyes to it and made it all real. Sure Harry often takes his contacts out at the end of the day, but it isn't as if he can forget the colors he knows should be there just because he doesn't see them. Until one day, one impossibly long and particularly emotional day everything changes.

He's just gotten back to his flat after delivering the news to Michelle that her husband has died in service for a country that will never know or be able to truly honor the sacrifice he made the way he truly deserves. He was never officially anything more to Kingsmen than a potential recruit, but while on the whole the new Lancelot seems quite capable, Harry can't help feeling that perhaps Lee was as much, perhaps more a Kingsmen than any of them. He feels guilty for ever thinking he hated him, for being so petty as to allow himself to be jealous of his happiness, of the love and life he had found and built outside of Kingsmen.

Of course Michelle knew the moment she opened the door to him, even if she'd never seen his face before. The colors around her already beginning to fade back to a grayscale she's not seen in years a clear enough indication that all was not right within her little world, and probably never would be again. Harry could still see her simultaneously burning and deadened eyes as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror to remove his contacts; could scarcely shake the image of the confused, innocent face of their too young boy as he had handed him the medal. As a result it took him longer than perhaps it should have to realize he was seeing everything in color, without his contacts in.

"Merlin, you busy," he asked after affixing his glasses back on his face.

"You know, it's not quite so advanced, but there is this modern device to get in touch with somebody called a telephone," the other man teased in his ear, then seeming to see the distress in the eyes that stared into the mirror his derisive teasing was cut short. "Harry?"

"I don't need the contacts anymore," he says, trying to get his racing pulse and thoughts back under control.

"You don't seem altogether thrilled about that. What's the matter with them," Merlin asks the slightest hint of concern for his friend cutting through his brogue.

"I was wearing my contacts," Harry continues defeatedly. "I got here and took them out and I'm still seeing color."

"You don't know who they are," Merlin surmises the significance of what the agent is saying sinking in. Harry nods. "Did you touch anyone-a brush up, anything that might have been the trigger."

"I took the underground for lunch across town," he moaned dejectedly, hanging his head a little. It was useless it could be anyone.

"Well... did you feel anything different or odd today?"

"Like what?"

"How the hell should I know," Merlin replied equally frustrated. "You know I haven't found mine yet either. But that's what everyone says isn't it, you suddenly can see colors and you feel... something," he continues lamely, the shrug as audible in his voice as if Harry could actually see it. "That's how you know this person is your other half."

"I don't know," he confesses sadly. "I had to tell Michelle Unwin her husband is dead, everything felt odd and wrong today." 

Merlin doesn't apologize, Lee's death isn't his fault, and Harry will already know he sympathizes with having to deliver such dark news. It's not pity he really needs right now so much as an ear, and since he's not presently tied up with any operations, he can give him that. 

"I'll be over in a half hour, we'll drink." Harry nods a bit glumly before turning off the glasses and setting them back down on the sink.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

It's during the parachute test that Eggsy thinks perhaps something is amiss. He'd had a nagging sense of it in the back of his mind for the last few days, because he'd been quite sure he'd pegged Roxy's hair and eyes being a bit brighter, a little bit deeper hued, and there were times he was sure his perception of color was just a bit.. skewed. 

Such things weren't totally unheard of, of course. Sometimes with a particularly strong pair of soulmates it happened that the other's ability to see colors could wain in the event of them being injured or stricken ill. The filter through which they perceived color recovered when their mate did, or was lost entirely in the unhappy event that they died-as had happened with his mother.

It was hard to imagine a world suddenly without color. The very possibility of losing the world as he saw it now and had long since become accustomed to, grown to love, was downright terrifying. Even if there seemed little possibility that he would ever figure out who his mate was, somewhere out there was the other half of his very soul, and Eggsy dared hope, perhaps even the better half of all himself. While he could see color there was at least still hope, however foolish it might have been.

The fact the colors seemed a bit duller lately meant that not only somewhere out there in the world his soulmate was hurt or sick, but that the bond they shared even without being together was far stronger than most. Just his fuckin' luck, wa'dnit? So Eggsy does his best to push all those thoughts as far out of his mind as he can, and focus on what is in front of him, and far more pressing: his training. Which of course he can't think about without thinking about his savior-turned-'sponsor'.

Harry-bloody-Hart, Eggsy thinks fighting to shake the thought of the older Kingsmen from his mind. First he rescues him from the coppers, then he hands Dean's mates their asses on a silver platter without so much as a wrinkle in his perfect suit... The man is competent as fuck, is the point.

Is it any wonder then that the smallest compliment from him sends a delightful sort of chill up Eggsy's spine? And that'd be fine really, if that was all Galahad complimenting him did. But nope, somehow the older man's praise went straight to his entirely unhelpful cock.

Eggsy tried to think, because he was hardly a blushing virgin or anythin', and yeah objectively Harry had a rather sexy voice and way of speaking-a certain amount of polish he generally lacks, but he couldn't recall any other circumstance or individual where he'd found such traits attractive before; who'd been able to coax an erection from him with a few simple words of praise. It seemed to be specific to Harry-fucking-Hart. Which is just bleedin' wonderful innit, because if there was one person he shouldn't-couldn't-have it had to be his mentor, the infamous Galahad. Well, and maybe Arthur, but 'Jesus Rox' that is fucking rank to even think about! Why would you even...'

And it's complete bullocks, because a guy like Harry, well he's got to have an equally perfect, incredible soulmate. Maybe it's another Kingsmen, or maybe some kind of badass normal. And they're either both of noble enough stock to have decided saving the world is more important than building their own world and lives together, or they're damn good at keeping a low-profile because Eggsy hadn't seen any ring besides the signet, or picked up on anything in his furtive glances and discrete studies of 'Galahad' or Harry Hart. But Eggsy can't begin to explain why he checked in the first place, or why these questions matter so much to him. Harry's his own man, a very busy man, and he certainly can't be bothered with his candidate's silly crush on him. Hell, maybe he was Merlin's soulmate, they seemed to have at least a friendlier rapport with one another than some of the other agents Eggsy has observed. Maybe he's read everything wrong and Harry's straight.

They don't tell him when his sponsor is injured while investigating the circumstances behind the death of the Kingsmen agent he and his fellow recruits hope to replace, because he's not Harry's soulmate, he's not anything to Harry Hart besides maybe a disadvantaged kid he's taken under his wing. (And he's trying very hard to ignore and not think about why that hurts so much.) Eggy supposes it's a kindness. Knowing Harry was laid up in the infirmary and that nobody could say for sure when the man would wake would almost certainly have distracted him from his and JB's training, no matter how much he would have liked to think he would have continued to stay focused and done his best to impress and earn the faith Harry had put in him when he finally woke.

No what they tell him is that for the first time in weeks (which Eggsy had done his best not to take personally or be hurt about, because 'grow up, the guy's probably busy doing some spy shit, ain't he?') Harry has asked to see him and Eggsy can find him in medical.

It's only because he's doing so well with his training in the art of deception, in controlling his emotions and what he projects to those around him, that he doesn't do an immediate double take seeing Harry in a robe and slippers rather than his usual bespoke suit and tie, and high-shine shoes, not to mention sporting decidedly longer hair than the last time Eggsy's seen him. And concern is immediate and certainly takes precedent, but the slight twitch of arousal just below his navel at the thought of seeing Harry something like this without his 'suit of armor', maybe a little disheveled (or a lot...) in an entirely different scenario is definitely present too.

But the truly disconcerting part about his latest train of thoughts where Harry is concerned, he thinks later the evening back in the the barracks for the ever dwindling number of remaining recruits, is that the new fantasies that have been cropping up in the back of Eggsy's mind aren't even explicitly sexual. Sure, the desire and urges are undeniably there. He's only human. And Harry's hot as fuck, isn't he? He'd drop to his knees for him in a heartbeat if he thought the man would let him. Would do, and allow Harry to do unspeakably sexy and dirty things to him, but now there were distinctly domestic fantasies too, things Eggsy has never had before, or even given much thought to wanting: eating, or perhaps even cooking breakfast together, cuddling on the couch over a movie or show on the telly, walking JB in the park together... 

He doesn't just want to shag Harry, he wants to be with Harry. He's falling for him, hard and fast, or maybe he already has and he's just in denial, because what the fuck does any of it matter, he can want and pine all he likes, it's not as if it will ever amount to anything. If he ever found out and Harry's not entirely disgusted by the very idea, he'd probably let him down gentle, ever the gentleman that he's always been, the gentleman that Eggsy's come to love, and that will just make it hurt worse.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Ever since he was a boy, Harry Hart was always been fascinated with butterflies. Being raised in a family well acquainted with excess it had been all but expected he would develop some eccentric and otherwise useless interest, hobby or other. It was simply what was done.

But the truth be told it's never really been so much about the butterflies as the caterpillars. Little, easily overlooked and seemingly unremarkable creatures that adapt, grow, and eventually become this absolutely stunning and perfect thing no one suspected them capable of. Harry was forever wandering the grounds in search of caterpillars, collecting, feeding and caring for them, then finally setting something beautiful free out into the world.

Eggsy Unwin, not unlike his father before him, is a caterpillar. It would be dishonest to say that his taking the boy under his wing, and putting him forward as a candidate for Lancelot was not motivated by the guilt and regret that he stole Lee from him and his mother all those years ago. It's a debt he can't ever hope to repay that he's still breathing while the other man, a damned fine one, isn't. 

Harry wonders briefly what Michelle would have to say about the organization that took her husband from her was recruiting her son. He imagines she'd have more than a few choice words for him. He doesn't know what Eggsy told her when he left, if anything, or why this is different from the marines for the younger man, but he can tell even without asking him that it is. Eggsy is in it for the long-haul this time, is determined to show all the doubting silver-spoon fed assholes up, and Harry for his part can hardly wait to see that happen. It's becoming clearer every day that Eggsy more than deserves this chance in his own right, and is willing to work just as hard, no, harder than the rest to prove it.

And however it may have started out, it's impossible for Harry to truthfully say now that his sole motivation in helping him is because of an age old debt he owes his father. Maybe it wasn't always, but his actions on his behalf are definitely largely motivated by Eggsy now. For all his attempts to appear hard and self-sufficient, Harry's seen Eggsy's softer core, the heart he saves for those he truly cares about.

There's something there, just beneath the surface, behind the walls they are training Eggsy to build, that's just so damn earnest it makes Harry's chest ache. A longing for acceptance, approval, love, that he's always-even at his worst and most rebellious deserved- but rarely received. And Harry wants more than anything to be the person to give that to him. He has quite without meaning to, grown incredibly fond of him.

He sees the way the boy lights up whenever he praises him, even as he tries to hide it behind cockiness, those smirks and playful winks. And Harry doesn't do praise- not with any frequency, and never without merit. But Eggsy's earned it, and even if he's had little to nothing to do with Eggsy's success so far besides giving him a chance to become a Kingsmen, he's damn proud of him. And Lee would have been too.

Which is what makes all of this so hard, because if he were anyone else' son. If Harry had met Eggsy any other way... Then maybe he wouldn't feel like he was betraying the other man's memory and trust for noticing just how gorgeous the boy is. 

Because Harry has definitely noticed well before now, perhaps since he helped to secure his release from jail, although some days that already feels as though it happened a lifetime ago. Eggsy has done and grown so very much since then. He's becoming that incredible creature, that beautiful butterfly few ever believed that unassuming caterpillar might one day be, and soon everyone will see it, see Eggsy the way Harry always has.

Well, maybe not precisely the way Harry has, at least some small jealous streak within him-ridiculous as it is- hopes not. Eggsy doesn't wear contacts, Harry knows, which means that he's already met his soulmate. He doesn't talk about them to him, or anyone so far as the agent can tell, but he's found that other half of his soul, and it isn't him.

Harry's done his best to pretend that doesn't hurt, because it was never a reasonable thing to hope for in the first place. There's how many years between the two of them? And even if that could be overlooked it's not as if Eggsy's completely transparent attempts to flirt with him up to this point have been anything other than an attempt to be cheeky. No, his caterpillar has a much more suitable and worthy soulmate.

It's not as if there isn't plenty of work to bury himself in after all, but somehow that tactic doesn't serve to distract him nearly as well as it once did, not where Eggsy is concerned anyway. Nothing in his life has been the same since Eggsy stumbled into it again.

Again, he thinks, stopping dead In his tracks. Bailing Eggsy out of jail isn't the first time that Harry Hart has met this precious boy. Somewhere in the back of his mind of course Harry knew that, but the guilt of having robbed him of his father meant that he did his best not to think about their first encounter- trying not to remember Michelle's shouts and her glaring daggers at him, but also forgetting a small boy with slightly chubby cheeks, wide, bright greenish eyes staring up at him too young to entirely understand the significance of what was going on as he promised to look after the medal, and his mother, taking it from Harry's outstretched hand, their fingers momentarily brushing each other's. 

Sure Eggsy might still have a soulmate that wasn't Harry, but suddenly he thought, heart hammering loudly behind his ribs, the idea didn't seem quite so impossible anymore. There was the slightest hint of a chance at least, and just as suddenly as the thought had occurred to him his heart was already taken and running with the idea before any more rationale part of his brain could advise caution. Oh god, he was fucked, wasn't he?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Merlin is not Harry's soulmate, because he's Roxy's, and doesn't that beat all? She's done an admirable job of keeping her feelings under wraps, and Eggsy thinks that it would be a fucking waste if he gets the position of Lancelot and they don't keep her around for another position as an agent in the organization, because she's damn good, but not the sort to rub that in your face like that tosser Charlie would. And admittedly, though perhaps less importantly to the logic of keeping her in Kingsmen, he likes Rox'.

Having become close to one another as mutual pariahs amongst the recruits earlier on-the only remaining girl and the street rat, she'd confided in him and he'd opened up about Harry, and for a moment they allowed each other the opportunity to uselessly pine and lament their hopelessness for a moment, before both doing their best to pick themselves up.

But Roxy's hadn't given up. Merlin still wore contacts, she informed him excitedly one afternoon after training. Just how the hell she knew or spotted that Eggsy hadn't the foggiest, but she was sure of it, Merlin didn't have a soulmate, which meant for her at least, there was still a chance, and because it was Roxy the hell if she was going to piss it away. 

One purposefully misfired gas canister, and the temporary disapproval and disappointed looks of their instructor who just happened to be the object of her desires and affection was no doubt worth it when Merlin peeled his contacts out with the rest of the unmatched candidates to rinse his eyes and Roxy' made her move.

On the pretext of apologizing and asking him a question, Roxy calm as you please let a hand drift out, coming to rest on the other man's shoulder. Eggsy's mind momentarily drifts back to when Harry had touched him similarly in The Black Prince after beating Dean's mates senseless. 

Merlin's pupils are threatening to take over the whole of his eyes as he's staring unblinkingly back at a smiling Roxy, mouth every so slightly slack in shock, and Eggsy knows. And Eggsy is happy for her, for both of them really, because after the parachute test he knows Merlin is pushing all of them hard, but he's not really such a bad bloke. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt watching Roxy get what he will likely never have, so after making sure that Charlie isn't about to disturb or harass them, he quietly takes his leave of the pair and heads back to his bunk, deciding on taking JB for a walk to clear his head.

Most days he's resigned himself to the fact he's never going to meet or know who his soulmate is, because try as he might it's hard to hold on to that boyish sense of optimism and hope forever; especially seeing and living through what Eggsy has. But that's okay. He's made peace with it... Mostly. It's not as if he has to live his life as a monk. There are plenty of other unbonded people either by choice or circumstance in the world who aren't looking for their soulmates or anything particularly serious.

So when he gets back to headquarters and Merlin announces that their next test will be a honey pot mission, he isn't particularly troubled by it. Maybe this will be the opportunity he needs to get Harry out of his head.

Eggsy cannot help but to notice the way Merlin looks seriously displeased at the idea of his newly discovered soulmate seducing someone other than him though, and Roxy is looking a bit conflicted. And he doesn't wish her ill, because she's a mate now ain't she, but this is a competition, there is only one Lancelot, and he needs this job-for his mum and lovely Dais', to prove to himself he can, to make Harry proud, and well... At least if Roxy scrubs out in the last few rounds she'll have gotten something to show for it all. She'll still have her soulmate, and given who he is it stands to reason that he will push to get her in another position within Kingsmen. Eggsy likes to think Harry at least likes him a little, but what if he's wrong? What if this is all just that favor he called in, what if he blows it? Will he ever see or hear from Harry again?

It is a line. And Roxy knowing him as well as she does by now, she knows he's just bringing up the champaign in an attempt to get their target's attention, and maybe Eggsy doesn't normally drink anything quite so fancy, but it really does taste a bit... Odd. 

The last thing that Eggsy registers is a thin, rather sinister looking face smirking at the three of them talking about roofies or even stronger stuff, and the last thought that goes through his mind before passing out is the quickly sinking feeling that 'fuck, Harry's gonna be so disappointed in me.' So when he wakes and the shady man is asking about Kingsmen, about Harry, Eggsy doesn't say a goddamn thing. He knows how to keep his mouth shut, and anyway he'd promised Harry, hadn't he? That he wouldn't say a word about all of it to anyone. If he was going to die here and now on the tracks, well then at least he'd die with honor, knowing that he may have helped keep Kingsmen, and more importantly Harry safe. He only hopes that someone will look after his mum and sister.

The roar of the oncoming train and flash of it's headlights are getting closer, "Eggsy," the man hollers over the din of noise, "is Kingsmen worth dying for?"

"Fuck yeah," the boy shouts over the howl of the train, eyes closing, bracing for impact, for his death.

But Harry's not disappointed in him. He's standing over him as the tracks slowly raise back up once more to ground level, telling him congratulations, and 'bloody well done.' Eggsy's heart swells even as he thinks, though certainly not for the first time, that some of these tests are pretty fucked up.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Eggsy tries his best not to take any perverse pleasure in watching Charlie being tested, even moreso when he cracks and fails, but Harry had invited him to watch, so he supposes he's allowed to enjoy it just a little, right? He never much liked the guy any more than the posh git had liked him. No doubt he was furious the two candidates to outlast him were a Roxy and Eggsy, and apparently he was Arthur's recommendation for the job. Eggsy fleetingly wonders if he and Roxy making it longer than Charlie chaps him too, but then Merlin is saying something about having 24 hours with their mentors and any thoughts about anybody except Harry are pushed straight out of his mind. 

Eggsy's heart is thudding in his chest with equal parts excitement, and yeah, just a little fear, because the game is up, innit? That pretty blond in the bar didn't help him forget his attraction and feelings for his sponsor in the slightest, and Eggsy is going to be a terrible spy because he doesn't think he can make it a full 24 hours in his mentor' company without slipping up and inevitably ruining what the pair of them already share. Fuck.

But he's following him out the door and wherever the older man is leading them both anyway a perfect, unaffected smile affixed to his face, because he doesn't have to pretend to be happy to spend time with Harry-even if he is a bit scared of mucking it up- and because he's already figured out he'd follow Harry Hart to the ends of the Earth.

It takes him a bit longer than it probably should to figure out they'll be spending at least part of their 24 hours together at Harry's house, because while he ought to know better since it's one of his best weapons, Harry has a way of making the people around him let their guards down, and Eggsy's long since busted down any walls he may have had up between them where Harry Hart is concerned. But when he does realize it, he can't really help but to take it all in, desperately trying to memorize it all in case- well, in case he isn't ever afforded the opportunity to come back.

But that's a thought he doesn't much want to dwell on, so instead, he redirects his attention and asks about the headlines that decorate his office, and listens with interest as Harry tells him about each of them- the missions he was on while the rest of the world, even he, was oblivious too.

'A gentleman's name should appear in the paper only three times...', well, Eggsy thought a bit defeatedly, he'd already failed in that respect then hadn't he? Charlie was right, and he told Harry so, but his mentor wasn't hearing it. Eggsy's frown returned and increased ever so slightly when Harry pointed out that he should have asked before taking a seat, once again he was failing. He'd never be the sort of gentleman that Harry was, the sort of gentleman that Harry might want... But martinis? Yeah, he could definitely handle that.

Or, maybe, you know-not. Per his usual methods of instruction Harry had allowed Eggsy to make his own martinis for the pair of them, and his own mistakes before offering up any advice or direction, although he drank the martini all the same with him so it couldn't have been too terrible, right? And somewhere between drinks and light conversation Eggsy decides he's got to at least try to be as brave as Roxy was or he'll spend the rest of his life wondering and regret it. Maybe Harry isn't his soulmate, but now he knows for sure that he isn't with anyone else, and maybe that's enough of a chance for now at least, and he can figure out the rest of it all later. 

"This another lesson," he ventures a little while and a couple of martinis each later, beginning to feel that distinctly pleasant and warm sensation in his abdomen as the alcohol is hitting bottom, head pleasantly fuzzy. "You gonna teach me how to hold my liquor like a gentleman, for missions and the like?"

"Is that a lesson you need, you seem to be doing just fine in that regard so far," Harry replies with what seems to be a patiently amused smile.

"That's only because you haven't asked anything of me, bruv," he chuckles softly shaking his head. "A couple drinks like these, and I'm pretty suggestible," he offers meaningfully with an attempt at a devil-may-care shrug even as his eyes are practically burning with something far more serious: wild, and maybe a little desperate.

"Mmm," Harry hums thoughtfully, in a way that makes Eggsy's cock twitch hopefully against his thigh. "Is that how you got the bright idea to steal a man's car for a joyride?"

"Wasn't just a man," Eggsy replies, maybe a bit defensively. "Wasn't a man at all, definitely not any sort of gentleman like you. One of my step-dad's underlings. Back-up to intimidate and threaten people in case he's too lazy to be bothered, yeah? Anyway, you didn't like 'em either, they're probably still crying and licking their wounds after you finished with 'em."

Harry lets out a soft, but amused snort, recalling the fight, if one could call it that- more of a beating really- at the Black Prince before he'd recruited Eggsy.

"You know," Eggsy continues thoughtfully, looking up at the older man once more. "I always wondered, why did you fight them anyway? You coulda left. Not like you couldn'ta got a pint somewhere else if you really wanted and needed one," he ventures curiously. When Harry doesn't immediately answer, Eggsy keeps going, because why the fuck not? "Was it just a bad day- or 'cause they insinuated you'd pick up a rent boy like me?"

"You aren't a rent boy," Harry replied evenly, even as he felt a growing desire to redirect the conversation away from such dangerous and emotionally charged waters. Eggsy doesn't bother to correct him to say that he didn't exactly dress so dissimilarly to some of the ones he's seen in passing on the block Dean's mates had suggested.

"You sure about that, bruv," Eggsy challenges with a cheeky smirk and a wink. "Maybe your research missed something."

"You're not."

"Nah, I'm not," he acknowledges with a shrug. "But you gotta admit we did make an awfully strange looking pair in the pub together. A posh guy like you with a guy like me. Like that 'Pretty Woman' movie you mentioned before."

"Not to mention far older," Harry points out, choosing to focus on the more important point of this discussion, rather than marvel at how or when Eggsy somehow found the time to see a film he mentioned once in passing, fighting to keep his wits about him as the younger man keeps talking, flirting (?) with him, but Eggsy just shakes his head.

"Fuck that, age ain't anything but a number," the younger man replies with a grin. "You still got it, I can tell." Yes, he's definitely flirting with him, and probably more than a little drunk, Harry assesses.

"You're drunk," Harry pronounces with a small frown, because there's no way Eggsy would be saying any of this, would seriously be flirting with him, if he wasn't. Eggsy shrugs once more distinctly unhelpfully.

"And you're gorgeous, and in the morning I might be a bit hungover, but you'll still be gorgeous," the young man replies cheekily. And it's only years of training and working as a spy that keep the older man from blushing at that assessment. "Just 'cause I might be drunk, don't mean I'm wrong. In vino veritas, right," the boy continues. "Bet you're a fantastic lay.."

"And, I think we've had enough," Harry announces taking the last of Eggsy's drink away from him, praying the younger man has enough of his wits about him not to need too much help getting up the stairs to the guest room to sleep it off, because touching him too much after Eggsy's announced with confidence he thinks the older man would be great in bed might just wreck what little control he has left.

"I don't," Eggsy pouts, and suddenly they aren't talking about alcohol anymore, or at least Eggsy isn't. "I've never had enough before, and now I've got all the food I want-seconds if I like- a warm bed, and yeah they push us hard, but nobody's taken a swing at me, or demandin' something I can't possibly do.. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but you're just-fucking perfect, aren't you? I want more. I know that's stupid, and selfish, but I do. I want you," Eggsy admits softly causing Harry to take a sharp, shallow intake of breath, before the younger man ploughs on. 

"I ain't ever had anything close to perfect before, I keep waiting for you to see and realize what everybody else does- I don't fit in, Harry. I'm not a gentleman. And it doesn't matter what you teach me, or how good I get at it- you and Merlin are alright- but the rest? They are never gonna see or respect me like an equal. They're never gonna let me in their little club. At least if Rox' doesn't make it she's got her soulmate outta the deal, doesn't she, but I screw this up? I scrub out and it's one more failure, and I got exactly the same I came in with- nothin'," Eggsy concludes dejectedly, avoiding the other man's gaze.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Harry doesn't know when in Eggsy's speech that he stopped breathing but his chest hurts-aches-for the young man in front of him, every bit as deserving of everything the silver spoon candidates, or even Harry in his much younger years had and took for granted, because now that Eggsy's said it, he can't look at him without seeing all of it... Everything, and everything that's missing.

Without seeing how much skinnier he is than the blissfully ignorant six year old he'd given that medal to all those years ago. And how many times had he not been able to eat until sufficiently sated, perhaps given up a part of his rations for his mother, and later his sister? Without noticing that as this is technically his downtime he's wearing his baggier, more casual clothes-they don't look too worn, but what had he been made to do to earn them? He'd faced down a grown, much larger man who threatened his very life and not spoken a word against Harry Hart or Kingsmen when he barely knew either. How many times had Dean threatened him, beaten him, hurt him before he'd finally thought to use that medal and summon Harry back into his life? Harry should never have left. Wouldn't have if he had had any idea...

Harry's fists curled, neatly trimmed nails biting into his palms, and teeth grinding at the thought, biting back the desire to go find that fucking sad excuse for a step-father and make him suffer as Eggsy clearly had. But more than anything else, Harry cannot look at Eggsy without feeling that he's failed him. How had things gone so horribly wrong, and so quickly in the years that had passed since he had turned up on their doorstep to deliver the worst sort of news? But Eggsy hasn't stopped staring at the floor and his shoes since he finished his druken speech, and Harry can't just ignore and leave him like that.

"Eggsy," Harry all but whispers, trying to temper the pity in his voice for the sake of the younger man's pride, because even now Harry knows it's there below the surface whether Eggsy will cop to it or not-that desperate desire to prove himself capable, independent, to prove he doesn't need anyone even when it's clear that he desperately wants someone. The thought that that someone might be, could be him, isn't what's truly important right now, no matter how much he may wish for it to be. And Harry isn't truly convinced that he would deserve the boy if he did want him, if indeed there ever was a time that he was he'd been worthy of him.

Large, watery and greenish eyes slowly drag up to meet his gaze once more. "Harry, please," he manages, voice sounding a little choked from what the older man could pretend is overuse with his earlier speech, but is probably in fact emotion, the same ones Harry is drowning in meeting Eggsy's eyes, and it's too much, and he can't stop himself, can't keep Eggsy at arm length, or even a breath away from him anymore. Harry doesn't know what the 'please' is for, maybe Eggsy doesn't either but Harry's all but certain it doesn't matter. He's not sure he could deny him anything now.

Harry shuts off the part of his brain that cautions against it, that wants to safeguard his heart, and pulls Eggsy towards him, closing the gap between them and wrapping his arms around him, allowing the side of his cheek to rest atop his head, nostrils slowly taking in and memorizing the smell of his shampoo, his breath brushing across his brow in slow and steady increments.

"Eggsy," Harry tries again, attempting to collect his thoughts and reign himself in a little more. "My precious boy," he continues soothingly quite before he can stop to give much thought to the words, even as they draw a small shudder from Eggsy, though clearly not one of disgust or revulsion. Hasn't he realized it by now? How precious and dear he is to him? "Nothing? Going back to living under a roof with a man who threatened to kill you? You're crazy if you think I'll let that happen," the older man whispers firmly with a fierce determination to make his words law, into Eggsy's hair, causing the younger man to laugh a bit shakily even as he burrows further into Harry's chest, breathing him in, arms wrapping back around him to anchor him there; as if Harry could ever leave him now, he thinks both fond and sad for everything that brought Eggsy so low.

"But you know you don't have anything to worry about," he continued softy, doing his best to reassure him. "You are more of a Kingsmen and a gentleman than someone like Charlie could ever hope to be on his best day," he smiled softly into his hair as Eggsy said nothing, but wrapped his arms still tighter about him in response. "You're going to pass with flying colors, and you are going to make a fantastic Lancelot," Harry pronounced proudly, and finally, Eggsy lifts his head to look up at him once more.

"You really do believe that," Eggsy marvels softly, still wrapped tight around Harry's middle.

"No Eggsy, I know that," Harry replies without wavering or a moment's hesitation, and a small but unmistakably fond smile, unwrapping his arms for a moment to allow one hand to drift to his shoulder and squeeze it as he had done when they had met again all those months ago. 

A soft, almost inaudible whine that Eggsy will forever deny making fills the quiet space between them, and then quite abruptly, both the wind and all thought are effectively knocked out of the older man as Eggsy suddenly surges forward, tugging roughly at any part of Harry he can reach while simultaneously arching up on to the balls of his feet to reach him and crush his lips against his.

Harry's body responds impressively quickly for not being nearly so young as Eggsy is, as the younger man must no doubt feel since he hasn't left so much as an inch between their two bodies now. Harry's brain, well, it's a little bit slower to catch up and supply the reasons why this probably isn't the best idea either has ever had.

"Harry," Eggsy whispers a little slurred from drunkeness, and nearly breathless, lips pulling only centimeters back from the other man's to get his name out, which unfortunately fails miserably to have it's intended effect; instead hitting Harry like a bucket of ice water being poured over his head. The older man is careful to pull away slowly, but Eggsy notices immediately anyway, frowning, watching intently, clearly waiting and bracing himself for whatever lecture or reprimand is coming to him.

"I'm sorry," he jumps in apologizing, seeming to decide against waiting for Harry to reject him. "It's just- well, you didn't immediately cringe or throw me out on my ass when I said I wanted you, and... I had to try," he shrugs helplessly. "-stupid," he whispers bitterly, though clearly these words are meant more for himself than present company.

Harry shakes his head slowly cupping Eggsy's cheek in his palm to draw his eyes back up to his once more so there can be no doubt he's heard him properly.

"Don't be sorry," Harry replies patiently. "You have never been stupid, Eggsy." Made some poor decisions in his past perhaps, the older man thought, but who hadn't? In any case, Eggsy Unwin was far from stupid. "If this is really what you want, try again when you're sober and have been knighted a Kingsmen so I'm not taking advantage and this isn't a huge conflict of interest," the older man offered, even as it pained him to pull back from what was being offered to him.

Harry couldn't just ignore the fact that Eggsy was drunk, no matter how much he wanted this, wanted him, couldn't bear the idea of whatever this was turning into something Eggsy would regret and wish to forget when vodka wasn't a factor, he wasn't about to make a move if there was any question of consent or hint of impropriety. "If you still want me then, I'm all yours," Harry promised meaningfully, beginning to let his palm slide away from the other's face before Eggsy's hand caught it and held it there a moment longer, a brilliant smile lighting up his entire face.

"Yes, Harry," he exhales, looking relieved and nods enthusiastically, finally releasing the older man's hand, before bringing it to his mouth to kiss it, which somehow almost unravels his willpower even more than their other kiss. Their first kiss, Harry thinks, though he dares hope it may be the first of many. "I am holding you to that," Eggsy warns, making Harry chuckle.

"I hope so."

"I know so," Eggsy nods, echoing something similar to Harry's own words and certainty earlier.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Eggsy did in fact wake up the following morning with something of killer headache and a rank taste in his mouth from their night of drinking that took a shower and brushing his teeth vigorously to get rid of. Harry on the other hand, was much as the young man had predicted, 'still gorgeous', standing in the middle of his small kitchen in his burgundy robe and slippers, humming something softly while cooking breakfast.

His usually perfectly coifed hair was just the slightest bit mussed from sleep in a such a way that Eggsy couldn't help but to think was frankly adorable, and quite endearing, (because Harry Hart had curls! Curls!) or maybe it was just the domesticity of the scene laid out in front of him. This wasn't just a house, it was a home, or perhaps more accurately-Harry was home at least for Eggsy. And if he never found his soulmate, he was quite sure he wouldn't feel as though he were missing out by being with Harry for as long as the older man could stand putting up with him.

"Can I still flirt with you," the young man asks a bit abruptly, as soon as the thought occurs to him before he can second-guess himself for asking. "I mean," he continues, forcing back a blush he feels creeping up the back of his neck as Harry turns around to meet his gaze, a patient and curious expression in place. "I remember what you said last night, the no kissing bit 'n all that while I'm still officially in training, I get that. But, were flirting before then, yeah," Eggsy asks, he just hadn't immediately recognized it as such, Harry was too polite and much more subtle about it than he was used to.

"I'd probably be a bit disappointed if we didn't," Harry admits with something of an amused smile. "Sit down and have some breakfast, we're headed into the shop to get you measured for a suit today, maybe show you around the armory."

"Wicked," Eggsy nods with a happy smile, and he doesn't say, but Harry's pretty sure he's almost equally excited about being given permission to flirt with him as being fitting for his own suit of armor, and checking out Kingsmen's weapons and gadgets. At least that's what Harry's choosing to believe, which absolves him from any guilt about initiating any flirting, or returning Eggsy's volleys his direction. And if the look on the agent minding the shop's front is anything to go on, the pair of them are probably as sickeningly sacarine as Roxy and Merlin had been immediately after discovering their bond with one another.

They aren't even trying to be subtle about it, and afterall why should they be? Neither has backed down an inch in the light of day of day and without being plied with alcohol. In a few hours they'll be fellow knights, and without any restrictions from pursuing one another. They're stalling for time now, and flirting shamelessly with double entendres, longing sideways glances... And then fucking Richmond Valentine has to spoil it, and Harry thinks although he doesn't have the time to confirm that if Eggsy's small frown when Harry tells him he has to go is any indication the younger man is probably reevaluating his earlier assessment and admiration for him.

It's probably better, Harry thinks trying to console himself and focus on what the big is picking up Valentine telling his assistant rather than fume about lost hours with Eggsy. They'll have plenty of time together soon. Once he's made Lancelot he can be more involved in his goings on, maybe even accompany him on some missions, and wouldn't they make a dangerous and lethal pair.

There is, despite his not so subtle comment earlier, nothing inherently sexual in being measured for a suit. But that hadn't stopped him fantasizing about sending away the tailor and taking Eggsy's measurements himself, of kissing and doing wicked things to him in front of the wall of floor length mirrors. Yes, it was probably better he'd been drawn away. Christ, whatever had happened to his self-control?

Almost as if reading his very thoughts his phone vibrates in his pocket, and he draws it out, smiling a little when he sees it's from Eggsy. Harry opens the message and immediately swallows hard. It's a photo, Eggsy is standing in front of the mirrors in a yet to be altered white button-down shirt, various pins and chalk markings indicating where the tailor will need to work, a few centimeters of his boxers just peeking out beneath it's tails, and sock garters. He looks positively sinful.

 **Popping my cherry in fitting room one isn't as much fun without you. :-( -E** the accompanying message reads, Harry doesn't waste any more time before typing out a response. 

**I'll make it up to you. -H**

**You better. ;) -E**

**You just concentrate on doing well with your last day of training, and I'll see you this evening. We can celebrate your becoming a Kingsmen. -H**

Eggsy's next and finally reply is simply a winking emoticon to confirm he received and appreciated the message and it's sentiment. Harry tucks his phone back in his pocket. Merlin would use the glasses to get in touch, and Eggsy will soon be meeting for his final test so he doesn't expect any more calls or text messages just yet.

Eggsy stares blankly at Arthur for a long moment before he turns the gun on JB. The little pug states back at him utterly oblivious to the fate that awaits him, same dopey sort of smile he always seems to wear. He trusts him. Loves him. Afterall. Eggsy has raised him as much as trained the stubborn little shit. And Eggsy is just supposed to shoot him. His hand trembles ever so slightly, finger trying desperately to reach for the trigger, but... He can't. 

He barely even registers the words Arthur is saying, it isn't as if they aren't things he heard plenty of times before now from his wanker of a candidate, Charlie. Arthur knew he wouldn't be able to do it, that a boy like Eggsy had no place in their organization no matter how much Harry might have thought or wished it to be so, and oh god Harry, Eggsy thought as he heard a gunshot from the other room. He was going to be so disappointed in him.

Scooping up JB into his arms before Arthur got any ideas about shooting him on his behalf he left before anyone could try to stop him, impulsively deciding to nick the black cab out front rather than take the bullet back to the shop. He couldn't risk running into his mentor just yet, couldn't bear the thought of facing him after having let him down.

Harry waits patiently, alright a bit impatiently, to hear back from Eggsy again. But the time in which Harry should reasonably have expected to hear back from the younger man comes and goes without being marked. And finally it's Merlin who gets in touch with him.

"Your boy didn't make it," he tells him through his glasses. "Couldn't shoot the dog, and we are pretty sure he stole Arthur's car on his way off the premises."

"I'll find him."

"He's a good candidate, Galahad. He has every chance of becoming a Kingsmen if you were to nominate him again when another position opens up. Gawain has been talking about retirement from field work," Merlin offers, obviously trying to soften the blow.

"Yeah, thanks Merlin," he sighs heavily, before turning off the comms.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

It's not fair, Eggsy wants desperately to protest. It's Arthur, not Harry, that Eggsy doesn't trust. Not that that's tremendously better since if he's going to be working for Kingsmen he should trust their leader, but, well Arthur's made it plenty clear enough he doesn't want Eggsy there, and there's just something about him that rubs the wrong way... Merlin administered Roxy's final test. If Harry had done his, he might have passed, would have trusted Harry to know how much JB meant to him, and that Harry wouldn't make him do anything that would hurt him or Eggsy if he didn't have to. But Eggsy cannot think of any way of voicing his feelings of injustice without sounding petulant, and he already feels about 3 inches tall under Harry's disappointed gaze.

Of course now that Harry's scolding him for throwing away such a huge opportunity he can see it. Every single test they'd been given has been at least in part something to fuck with their heads. Why should this have been any different? It wasn't, he had just been too thick and caught up in sentiment to see it.

That doesn't mean that Harry bangin' on about what a bleeding idiot he's been is needed or welcomed though. The thing is, for all their flirting back and forth, it isn't as though they've actually talked about what this is between them yet. Eggsy is pretty sure he's totally gone for Harry. But whether because he's a gentlemen, it hasn't yet come up, or they're both a bit shite at talking about their feelings, what exactly the older man is feeling for him remains a complete mystery. For all Eggsy knows he just finds him attractive and thinks he'd be a good shag. 

He doesn't actually want to believe that's the case, of course. Last night when he'd laid his bleeding heart out and pretty much let vodka make a fool of him, Harry had been nothing but patient and uncommonly kind in comforting him. And if sleeping with Eggsy was all he'd truly been interested in, he could have taken full advantage of what he'd attempted to offer him with that kiss. 

But hopes and wants are uncertainties-a risk Eggsy can't afford to take. He's let Harry break down all his walls and defenses in a way nobody else ever has, this man he's come to love and care about more than he's ever loved anyone besides his mum and Daisy-well, he can hurt him like nobody else too. 

So Eggsy fights like a cornered dog just waiting to be beat-defensive, ugly, and mean. As soon as the words about Lee's death and how much Harry is indebted to his late father leaves his mouth, he regrets even having thought it, the heartbroken look that fills Harry's brown eyes make Eggsy want to cut his tongue out for lashing out and hurting him like that. 

Because of course he knows everything Harry has done for him has at least in some way been to repay a debt he can never fill. If anything Eggsy worries it might be the only reason Harry's put up with him for this long. But the older man is answering a call on his glasses before Eggsy can make any kind of apology, and then he's telling Merlin to prep the plane.

"Harry, I'm so sorry. I'm gonna do everythin'-"

"You should be," Harry snaps bitterly, allowing hurt to get the better of his temper. "You just stay right there, I'll sort this mess out when I get back."

Eggsy manages to stay in the small bathroom staring at the stuffed dog and shadowboxes of butterflies for an impressively long time after Harry leaves before the silence and walls begin to feel as though they're closing in around him. He's really done it now. His greatest fear was screwing up and losing everything he's come to know since he called that number on the back of his dad's medal. And he's gone and made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

With any luck his uncertain mission objectives, once they present themselves will be easily resolved and Harry can be back in his flat in London in a day or so. Because, while he didn't have the time and was too upset to say so, much as he and Eggsy are a mess at the moment, it's a mess he will be more than happy to deal with and hash out if it means he gets to keep Eggsy. But given how high profile that Valentine is, not to mention the large number of still missing VIPs around the globe, the idea of the mission being a quick one seems more than a tad optimistic. 

He should try to get some sleep, missions like these afford precious little time to adjust to different time zones before being required to spring into action, and Harry still isn't sure what awaits him at South Glade Mission church. The plane is equipped with more than comfortable enough seats and even a small couch for agents to use if need be. 

But Harry can't sleep. He can't eat. He can't do much of anything but continuously replay the spat he had with Eggsy, who he worries won't be sleeping or eating either after how cold he had been, and Harry's stomach in knots. He will put it aside once he's in the field of course, you don't get anywhere in the business of being a spy without learning how to compartmentalize, but Eggsy doesn't have that luxury, and Harry's got nothing to distract or busy him at the moment from his sinking feeling of guilt. 

He shouldn't have left Eggsy like that. Should have at least said something to reassure him that they were going to be alright, even if Eggsy wasn't Lancelot as they had both hoped. That just because he had failed that final test didn't mean he was, or that Harry thought of him now as a failure. Harry knows by now despite his cocky demeanor, the young man wasn't always quite as confident as he liked to pretend to be thanks to a shaky, neglectful, and even abusive home life. Leaving as abruptly as he did was cruel.

Harry pulls out his phone, before realizing mission protocol forbids him calling Eggsy right now, no matter how much it would probably soothe his nerves and twisted up intestines. He takes a few minutes, considering, before typing out a short text message instead. His phone will probably take an ungodly amount of time to figure out just where the hell he is once they land before it can deliver it to it's intended recipient, but he feels a little bit better as he tucks it back in his pocket and finds he is able to sleep briefly before they reach the airstrip in Kentucky.

Eggsy tried to stay busy. Harry told him to stay here, and honestly he doesn't really want to be any place else, at least not until they can talk again face to face. He can't be sure if he went back home if he could find the courage to come back. Already the thought of possibly being rejected is eating at him. But it is difficult to occupy himself and ignore his nervous energy indefinitely. Eventually he wanders back into Harry's office, at first to read more headlines, before curiosity gets the better of him and he manages to crack the encryption on the older man's computer so he can watch the progress of his mission.

Eggsy can't help but snort at Harry's obvious attempt to rile the woman seated next to him at the hate group church. "I'm not black Harry, and you gotta come back across the pond again first before we can enjoy 'congress' together," he laughs, trying to keep himself hopeful for his prospects in spite of his shite performance with his last test, not to mention his poor manners and short temper with him earlier. And then it's abruptly all going to shit.

Eggsy's phone chimes softly, vibrating in his pocket while he watches in both fascination and horror as the congregation-including Harry-suddenly seem to become rabid. He'll check it later. The dust has barely started to settle as Harry steps out of the church and finds himself face to face with Valentine.

The thundering echo of the gunshot and anything the internet mogul says afterwards is drowned out by Eggsy's horrified shouts.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

The house had felt small and seemed to get increasingly smaller with every minute that had passed since Harry had left after their fight. Now it felt like a cage. Eggsy couldn't look at the office walls, at all the headlines knowing that there would never be another one. That Harry's name would appear for the second and last time in the newspaper, if Kingsmen or a family member (did he have any?) identified his body amongst those at the church. He poured a drink sitting down at the dining room table, but that too felt wrong, all he could see and hear was Harry, his image and voice haunting him. He couldn't stay here.

Kingsmen or not, he knew about the agency, he knew about Valentine, and Harry had believed in him, even if he'd never had the chance to redeem himself from losing the Lancelot position to Roxy. He had to go, had to try to help, to be the young man with potential and a desire to do good Harry Hart had seen and recognized in him when no one else did.

"Arthur, Harry's dead," he said as he entered, proud at least that he'd managed to keep his voice from shaking. He didn't like the correction. 'Galahad' was the name of his position in Kingsmen. It was a bleedin' job title. It wasn't Galahad that Eggsy would miss, wasn't Galahad's death that was threatening to tear him apart at the seams. It was Harry's, Harry fucking Hart. Not to mention Arthur seemed far too calm and composed. Perhaps Arthur and Harry hadn't been particularly close, he'd never really asked, but it irked him that a posh and prejudice tosser like Arthur got to live, while a good man like Harry died, like there weren't even pricks and assholes in the world already. Arthur's words only half registered as Eggsy stared at the chairs at the table where Harry might once have sat, where he would never sit again.

"...and a most distinguished legacy it is for our fallen friend too." He supposed that was something, but it certainly didn't feel like much consolation to him. Eggsy didn't much give a damn about a legacy, he'd rather have his mentor back, even if Harry was still pissed and disappointed with him and all of mucking up getting into Kingsmen. So the information Harry had gathered saved the world from going to shit. But, Eggsy was beginning to realize, for him at least, a world without Harry is shit.

Arthur beckoned him over, explaining the decanter and pouring him a drink, when Eggsy saw the scar. 'Galahad was fond of you.' The words burn, curdle in his stomach and sicken him. He knew. He knew what was happening. What might happen to Harry, and he had let it happen. Harry would be alive if it weren't for this waste of a human being.

Eggsy points to the portraits on the wall distracting the other man so he can switch their glasses just in case, accepting the toast and swallowing the drink in one go. It burns, almost as much as his contempt and rage for Arthur hidden well just beneath the surface while he explains Valentine's justification for his plan.

"And you Eggsy," Arthur adds to the list of people who will survive the apocalypse Valentine plans to unleash, at Eggsy's protests for the mogul playing god and saving only saving who he thinks is important. "In Harry's honor, I'm inviting you to be part of the new world. It's time to make your decision." 

And fuck, that ain't a decision at all is it, because Valentine's plan, what Arthur is offering him? It's got fuck all to do with honor, and it's besmirching Harry's name and the legacy Arthur was banging on about even suggesting it is.

"I'd rather be with Harry," Eggsy replies, and sadly he means it, perhaps even more than anyone, but especially Arthur, could possibly know. "Thanks," he adds sarcastically just to piss the other man off, because why not? Eggsy stares right back at Arthur as he clicks his pen, and seals his fate.

"The problem with us common types is, that we're light-fingered," he explains examining his glass as the poison begins to take effect in the older man. "Kingsmen's taught me a lot, but-slight of hand-" he continues leaning in to look him dead in the eyes, confront him with all he's done, all he's responsible for. "I had that down already."

"You-dirty, little fuckin' pric--" Arthur manages to choke out before collapsing into the table. And well, it ain't exactly like Eggsy hasn't heard them words or others like them, even worse before, from Dean or some other tosser.

He doesn't even bother with being gentle when he removes the implant, taking it and the phone down to Merlin and Rox-Lancelot.

He uses everything that Harry and Kingsmen have taught him, and a few things he's picked up himself, but knowing that Harry isn't watching, won't be there when he gets back to tell him all about it, that he will never hear the man is proud of him again from Harry's lips or in Harry's voice make it all feel hollow somehow. 

He flirts with the crown princess Tilde, because it seems like what a spy is expected to do, something he would have done before he realized he was in too deep with his mentor. The adrenaline after killing Valentine is enough to convince him it might still be a good idea, because how many people can say they've slept with a princess? But grief wins out in the end, and Eggsy apologizes, settling for the kiss he originally asked for, which she seems to realize would be better kept platonic, and kisses his cheek.

Things are quiet on the way back to Kingsmen headquarters. In the wake of Valentine's plot and Arthur's betrayal coming to light, and under the pressure of the countdown clock none of then has had much time to grieve or come to terms with it all. Eggsy knows, because Merlin checked the CCTVs for him that his mum and Daisy made it out alright, but he can't bring himself to call and talk to them, not just now. Roxy calls again to reassure them know Eggsy is alright and will see them as soon as he can, bless her.

It should feel better: knowing you just helped save the world. But now everyone that was responsible for Harry's death is dead, and Eggsy just feels all the more like a boat without sails or rudder, directionless and lost. No doubt when the dust has settled a bit Kingsmen will offer him a position with them to bolster their ranks. Maybe even the role of Galahad, and of course Eggsy will take it. Harry would have wanted him to, and somewhere under all the pain and hurt still lurks that young man who wants to do something good with his life, but he can't bring himself to even think about it just yet. So Eggsy just stares unseeing out the window into the clouds and sky, and Roxy and Merlin do their best not to intrude upon his grief, or be unnecessarily cruel rubbing his nose in their quiet comforting of one another.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

He doesn't notice at first, or maybe Eggsy simply doesn't want to, but when he goes to see his mom again and finally has his day with Dean and his muppets it's impossible to ignore. Daisy's hair isn't that beautiful creamy sunshine yellow he's always remembered. It's no fault of his little sister's of course, but to Eggsy's eyes it appears significantly duller now, and he knows what that means. He holds it together somehow until the end of the visit, until he's returning to Harry's house before collapsing on the nearby settee and dissolving into particularly loud and completely undignified sobs, but if his grief is ungentleman-like at least there's no one to see or criticize him about it. 

The last thing Harry told him was to stay there, so Eggsy has been, deluding himself sometimes into thinking any moment the older man will walk back through the door again, even if he knows he never will. Harry doesn't, Merlin informed him, have any other family, but Merlin assures him-sincerely, unlike the organization's previous head, he cared very much for Eggsy and would probably want him to have his things and his house if he wants any or either. In any case someone should take care of the place until it's decided what to do with his things; with these little pieces of Harry Hart's life he'd collected over the years.

Eggsy forces himself to push past the pain, to study and catalog everything in the house to the smallest detail while he can, because he knows what is coming, knows that with each passing day everything will begin to fade to gray the way beautiful, precious Daisy's hair has started to. Soon enough, and for the first time since he can clearly recall, Eggsy Unwin won't be able to see colors anymore. The thought nearly breaks him, it feels as though he's lost Harry all over again. He wishes he knew the stories behind some of the collections, behind each of the headlines in his office, each shadowbox of butterflies, vase, painting and photograph hanging on the walls. He's pretty sure that Merlin could fill in at least some of the blanks for him, but he can't bring himself to ask, not yet. Maybe with a little more time, but for now, it would simply feel too counterfeit, because Eggsy still desperately longs to hear Harry tell him those stories.

He'd been desperate-stupid, his mind unhelpfully supplies, not without bitterness-the first night he'd slept at Harry's after everything, head swimming and heart aching he hadn't had it in him to quash the impulse to sleep in the master bedroom, burying himself in the warmth of the comforter, burrowing into the sheets and pillows that still carried something of the smells he had come to associate with Harry. But he'd not been able to do so again since he'd realized just what it was that he lost. It should have become their bed, a place to cradle both them and their shared dreams and future together, been the site of sufficient enough trysts and love-making to smell of both of them so that it was impossible to distinguish the scents that were Harry's from Eggsy's. Instead it smelled only of Harry-of tea, his soap and subtle aftershave; and Eggsy was now accutely aware, that particular perfume, not unlike his ability to see the world in bright and brilliant colors had an expiration date, was probably already fading. He was torn from wanting to bury himself in all the things that smelled and reminded him of Harry; to never again leave the small house, this cocoon of grief shielding and keeping out the rest of the outside world, and the impulse to seal up the bedroom to keep it preserved for as long as he possibly could. It was all so wrong. He had been so wrong. Life really was every bit as cruel as he should have long since come to expect it to be, crueler.

His phone hardly seems to matter in the grand scheme of things, and it's only after Roxy phones him to establish a welfare check that he even notices he's missed a text message. Really it's more a surprise there aren't more of them stacked up by now, but he supposes with Kingsmen training and then the world nearly coming to an end he's been rather neglectful of any mates he had at the council flats, and Merlin and Roxy are more apt to stop by than call or shoot him a message where they can to ensure he's at least eating every now and again, which is just as well, because without their intervention he probably wouldn't be, for all his competence in helping to save the world from V-day, Eggsy's more than bit of a mess these days.

Merlin seems to have figured out however good a Kingsmen the young man might be, sending him out in the field like this would be a mistake. Because the truth of the matter is as much as he wants to be the man that Harry always thought he could be, he's too broken right now, wants nothing more than to follow after Harry to his own early grave. Now he knows his mum and Daisy are well shot of Dean and his goons, that they will never hurt for anything ever again there seems little left for him anymore. Merlin tells him there aren't any missions, and Eggsy does his best to believe that's true even in the wake of the world losing so many of it's leaders and trying to rebuild. He does his best to ignore the sympathetic looks he and Roxy give him when they think he won't see them. Smiles for lovely Daisy, because she's too young to understand why her 'Eggy' is sad, might think it's her fault, and Eggsy can't do that to her, no matter how much pretending to be alright and smiling through his loss slowly eats at him.

But it's not just a message on his phone. It's a message from Harry. The last message he'll ever get from him, and for a moment Eggsy just stares at the name, his heart seems to have dropped right out of his chest, the phone trembling in his hands. He doesn't open it. Because Eggsy doesn't know if he can, doesn't know if he wants to. He calls Roxy instead. She picks up on the first ring and probably breaks a hundred traffic laws to get there an agonizing 20 minutes later. Eggsy lets her read the message first, trusting her to decide whether or not he will be able to handle it's contents. She studies it for a moment, before coaxing Eggsy to re-position himself on the settee so she can wrap her arms around him and he's all but in her lap when she hands him back his phone-the message open for him to read.

**Eggsy, I love my job, and it brings me enormous satisfaction, but at the same time I've been very lonely over the years. Thank you for bringing some warmth and color into my life. I hope that I've proven a man is capable of anything in his life. All we need is a little opportunity and someone to believe in us. I know that, ostensibly, I’ve been teaching you in our period together, but on the other hand I genuinely believe that you’ve been teaching me, too. I taught you all about good clothes and foreign languages and nuclear bombs, but you’ve taught me what was missing from my life.**

**I'm sorry I lost my temper and left things the way I did. I believe in and am incredibly proud of you Eggsy, I always have been, and I always will be. You are a Kingsmen, just maybe not Lancelot. You wouldn't be the young man I've come to know, respect, and become so impossibly fond of if you had shot JB. We can sort out another position for you when I get back if you'll permit me. ...Please let me make it up to you when I get back. Let me teach you how to feel the difference in weight between a live round and a blank. -And maybe take you out to dinner? -Harry**

Eggsy laughs, because isn't it just like Harry fucking Hart to know how to text, but to use it as a means of sending what for all intents and purposes is a letter without the hassle of waiting for the postal service to deliver it. Not just a gentleman, or a knight, but both out of a time that most seem to have long forgotten. And then Eggsy cries, because he didn't know how much he needed to know Harry was proud of him from the man himself until he read it in black and white, and somehow it still isn't quite the same, not quite enough knowing he'll never hear him actually say it. -Knowing that he'll never know where Harry might have taken him for dinner when he got back from the states. Or how many dates it would have taken for him to convince Harry he's been gentlemanly enough and sufficiently wooed him to take him to bed. He'll never know whether Harry prefers to be the big or little spoon, how much of the bed he takes up, whether or not he hogs the covers when he sleeps, if he snores, if he's a morning person or not, or even what he looks like in the mornings, before he's put on his perfect suit of armor. Eggsy cries until it hurts to cry, until his eyes are burning and can't produce any more tears, and then he shakes still choking on increasingly hoarse sobs, and Roxy just holds him, one hand gently combing comfortingly through his hair until he's exhausted himself and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first paragraph of Harry's text message to Eggsy, like these characters isn't property of this author, but is a borrowed (slightly modified) excerpt from the graphic novels that inspired Kingsmen in which Gary (Eggsy) finds a letter his uncle (the inspiration for Harry's character) has written to him after his death.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like  
> to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Among the tasks that Harry's death has created was traveling to America to identify and collect his body, and bring him back home. Kingsmen were the only family the man had left, and Harry was a loyal and faithful knight for them to the end. Even those that never actually met the infamous Galahad respected him and his contributions to the organization over his decades of service; there was no question of the need to do right by him. 

No, the question was who to give the task to. Harry was important, but in the end he was just a body now, and there were living, breathing people that needed help and protecting that took on a higher priority than the former Galahad's body lying in a morgue an extra day or two while they figured out who they could afford to spare for the job of retrieving him. If he were still alive the man would no doubt have understood and forgiven their tardiness in the matter. It might even have been an amusement to him, he was rather well known for being perpetually late himself afterall.

Merlin made it perfectly clear that he doesn't think Eggsy is up to the task, and honestly after several dangerously close calls flirting with disaster and death before the man had pulled him from the field, Eggsy can't really blame him. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Merlin and much of the Kingsmen agents are being kept far too busy re-stabilizing the world in the wake of V-day, and trying to determine how to choose, and who exactly should be their next figurehead. Eggsy is the logical choice for the job, but no one is quite sure if he will be able to handle it. It's not exactly a secret that he hasn't been handling the death of his mentor at all well.

But Eggsy will fly commercial if Merlin won't give him use of one of the jets, and makes a point of telling the man as much-Roxy too, just in case Merlin doubts his sincerity. He's going, and nothing anyone says or does is standing in his way. He knows Harry's body isn't likely to be in any sort of state that he will want to see or remember him by, knows even if the glasses cut out seconds after the shot rang out a headshot would be ugly. He doesn't know how he's expected to identify the body. But he will. He will because Harry, his soulmate, needs him to in order to come back home to England, and Eggsy can't let him down again. He won't.

But the body they show him at the morgue isn't Harry's. Neither is the next one, or the one after that. And maybe Eggsy didn't have the opportunity to see or study Harry Hart's body-to trace, map and memorize it nearly so much as he would have liked, as the two of them might-should have done, but after all his pining he'd know it anywhere he's sure of it. And anyway none of these John Does are wearing anything like what Harry had been when it had all happened. Harry wouldn't be caught dead in what most of these blokes were wearing, Eggsy thought suppressing a wry laugh at the thought. So Harry's body isn't among any of those recovered from the church, and Eggsy feels something in his chest tighten.

Valentine wouldn't have taken the body or done something to it... Would he? He could scarcely look at Harry as he leveled the gun, had looked away when he pulled the trigger. But, a little voice inside Eggsy reminded him, his assistant with the deadly prosthetic limbs hadn't had any such reservations or squeamishness. And if they had done something vindictive or nefarious to Harry's body it wasn't as if either would be able tell him, or any of the Kingsmen anything anymore, he though slightly sickened.

"Eggsy there's nothing we can do now. V-day left a lot of bodies, a lot of confusion. You tried and did your best, lad. We all did. Harry would understand that."

"But Harry don't belong here though does he? All these other people from the church- maybe it was a massacre, but they was all hateful, ugly people in the first place, wasn't they? Harry was worth more than a hundred a them put together. And I ain't leaving here without 'im, Merlin," Eggsy replied stubbornly shaking his head when he spoke to him later from his heap motel room.

Eggsy might be a Kingsmen and a gentlemen, but there wasn't any need for extravagance or extra expense on a job like this one. He would hardly have appreciated it now anyway. The finer things in life these days just weren't the same without Harry. That silver spoon he'd spent much of his life admiring and envying left a bad taste in his mouth. "I can't. You said it yourself, 'ya can't send me on any missions with my head on like this anyway," he pointed out.

"Yes lad, I recall, but-"

"I can't Merlin. I have to find him. I'll call again 'soon as I find a lead or somethin', " Eggsy promises, disconnecting the call before Merlin can say anything more or try to talk him out of it. He'll send Roxy, Eggsy's sure once she's back from whatever mission she's been sent out on; a familiar face to try and entice him to come back, to move on, to try and get his life back together.

Merlin will have him fitted for contacts so he can continue to go on missions again once he's in a it state to, so he can see the world in color and it'll be as if he's never lost his soulmate. As if the world isn't missing something- someone as incredible as Harry Hart had been. But Eggsy will know, and without some sort of closure about it all, it will break him. 

He's not really a Kingsmen anyway, he thinks sometimes in darker moments of despair and loss. He didn't pass the test like all the others. He was the idiot that couldn't bring himself to think of shooting a dog, the candidate who talked like a pleb and when left to make his own decisions dressed like a chav- winged trainers and all. The candidate with great potential, but that didn't know about getting a hose around the u-bend of a toilet, or how to tell when a gun was loaded with blanks. Sure they had given him Harry's old post; after V-day they needed all the help they could get, and of course Eggsy had proved himself useful, but it wasn't the same, and every time anyone referred to him as Galahad it felt like he was being stabbed in the chest. 

So staying in Kentucky isn't really a choice, at least not for Eggsy. He has to find Harry. He will.

What neither Eggsy nor any man in Kingsmen had considered or dared hope for though was the possibility the older man and agent might have survived this latest brush with death. But across the county in a now vastly overcrowded hospital a yet unidentified John is waking from his coma and giving his doctors and nurses a hell of a time trying to rip out his IV and tear at his bandages in his fear and confusion, shouting about Valentine and demanding "eggs" of all things?


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

The doctor and nurses eventually managed to sedate him, and Harry awoke some hours later to find his IV thoroughly taped down to his arm, and his hands restrained to either side of the bed, though they had at least been kind enough to leave a small remote with a call button in his left hand. A trembling digit managed to press the button and the harried-looking nurse the button summoned informed him that he, like innumerable others had been found in the wake of what was now being called 'V-day' and brought in to the hospital for treatment.

The doctor who stopped in a little later asked him what he was sure was a standard barrage of questions for someone who might be shocked or disoriented. _He'd come in with a gunshot wound that had grazed the side of his head and his temple which had lead to his coma. Did he remember what happened?_ He should, but no, Harry shook his head, he didn't really recall with any clarity. _That was okay,_ the doctor assured him. _Many who had suffered the effects of the brain wave inhibitors from that day were confused about the events just before and during the chaos. What was the last thing he could remember?_

He frowned, screwing up his face in concentration, before abruptly stopping because the expression pulled at bandages and stitches and bloody Christ that hurt. But he couldn't seem to recall much details of anything at all really, and what little he could, he found he was having trouble putting to words.

_Aphasia,_ the young doctor assured him, _was not entirely unexpected with the sort of injuries he had sustained. Try talking around the things you want to say, describe them,_ she encouraged with a patient nod to him. 

A face swam in the forefront of his memories, but like a dream it was faded, somehow nondescript in it's features though, he knew it shouldn't be, that he should know this face, every plane and detail, and the person that wore it far better than his present recall would allow. You didn't feel the kind of hurt that trying to concentrate on that face produced if you didn't know or care about them. He remembered...

"A fight with- someone," he shrugs helplessly, unable to produce a name or relationship for the face that haunted him. "Guilt. Sad-no, hurt," he corrects, swallowing the feeling even as it threatens to well back up inside him, even without the proper context. "Lots of butterflies. And.. pickle," he lists struggling to put them all together into something meaningful, but none of it makes terrible much sense. The doctor's face is expression-less but he's sure somehow that she cannot make anything of the few words he's managed to cobble together either, even as she records them on her clipboard.

The doctor makes a noise of assent before looking up at him from her clipboard once more. "Mr. DeVere," she begins softly before pausing, taking notice that her patient isn't responding to his name, still staring out his room's window. "Excuse me, sir," she tries again, this time securing his attention. "Can you tell me your name?"

Huh. Not remembering what had happened just before his accident made a certain kind of sense. Not remembering who he was at all was terribly distressing, he thought finally shaking his head once more, the machines beside him beeping to register the faint rise in blood pressure, no doubt from stress the doctor was quick to try and assuage. "I will see to it we get your personal effects brought to you now that you're awake, perhaps that will help to jog your memories, but your wallet and cards identified you as Harry DeVere."

"We haven't managed to find any current address or family members for you, but our staff will keep looking. It's still a bit difficult finding loved ones in the aftermath. They may even be in a hospital like yourself, but don't worry I'm sure it will all come back to you soon enough. In the meantime you should probably try to get some rest," she offered trying to reassure him.

Harry dreams in color, dreams of the face that he still can't recall properly, sifting through scattered thoughts for details. It isn't until he wakes up in the middle of the night when a nurse comes in to check his vitals that he realizes. He dreams in colors, but everything from the moment he woke in the hospital has been far more muted than what he sees when he closes his eyes. The face he can't recall is his soulmate, he's sure of that much now, but if he can't see colors as well now, if they are fading away as they seem to be it can only mean that the other half of himself is dead, can't it?

Harry goes through the motions of cooperating with his vitals being taken, but feels somehow even more hollow at the thought of this loss. Even more so because he cannot remember the individual well enough to properly mourn his soulmate's loss. He only hopes that he wasn't the one who killed him, or at least if he did that that particular memory will never return to him. He doesn't think he could survive it. Knowing he has outlived his perfect match and mate seems cruelty enough.

"Why eggs," the night nurse asks curiously as he is folding up the blood pressure cuff, wrenching him from his thoughts.

"Sorry," Harry asks a bit confused.

"I'm sorry," the man replies shaking his head and looking a bit sheepish. "I suppose I'm prying. I don't mean to be rude, I was just curious. They said when you woke up you were shouting about Richmond Valentine. Everybody knows he was behind everyone attacking each other, so that makes sense, but they said you were yelling something about eggs. _You needed eggs, you wanted eggs. Where was your eggs?_ But you're the least demanding and probably the most polite patient I've had here in awhile, so what's so special about eggs," the nurse asked cautiously.

"I..." Harry hesitated, he didn't remember that. It must have been just before they had sedated him again. "I don't know," he confessed defeatedly, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry Mr. DeVere, I didn't mean to trouble you, as I said, I was just curious," the nurse apologizes, quickly taking his leave.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

_Try drawing an egg,_ the doctor had suggested the following morning when he asked about his outbursts when he'd first woken up in the hospital. Harry thought that had to be one of the most bizarre and ridiculous requests he had ever heard, in fact for a moment he was sure that he was having trouble hearing her properly again. It wasn't a constant battle the way speaking was, but every now and again his ears fails to communicate what they were hearing to his brain. Words came in jumbled, muffled, or sounded entirely foreign to him though he knew they were speaking a language he should know and understand.

"It will help you work on getting your coordination back," the doctor went on to explain, so Harry must have heard her correctly, then. "And maybe it will help you remember why they were so important to you."

For all that everyone told him he was lucky to be alive, his recovery was nothing short of an exhausting and at times incredibly frustrating experience. His hands, which Harry was somehow quite sure he had been quite skilled with before the accident, now seemed clumsy, and slow to do what he wanted or his mind directed them to. Speaking or even making simple requests continued to be a struggle, which often required two and three times as many words as he talked around something: _water, leaves, sugar, milk- yes, yes **tea!**_

But "eggs" continued to confuse and vex him. He couldn't make heads or tails of why eggs could be so important. And every night he continued to dream of the faceless soulmate he couldn't remember. Would he ever remember?

Merlin gave him two weeks, before dispatching Roxy to try and talk Eggsy into coming back home without Harry's body in tow. But it was Roxy that went back to Kingsmen empty-handed, no less successful in getting the young man to budge-although she had at least succeeded in making sure he took better care of himself for the duration of her brief stay. 

Eggsy was beginning to look as haunted as he felt, gaunt, dark circles constantly hanging beneath eyes that frequently stared off into the distance at nothing in particular. Staying and looking for Harry wasn't helping him get any better or to move on with his life. If anything it was making him worse.

"Eggsy," Merlin tried again one evening after Roxy had gone back home. "He's dead. Harry is dead, lad. Even if you find his body, it isn't going to bring him back; he wouldn't want you to waste away like this."

"How do you know what Harry wanted," Eggsy snapped defensively, even as he knew he was being stupid. Of course Harry wouldn't have wanted this, he would have said he was wasting his time and potential again, but that didn't mean he appreciated the blunt wake-up call from the other agent, didn't mean it didn't hurt, that he didn't feel a tremendous sense of guilt at the idea of going back home empty-handed. "I don't even know what he wanted," he admitted brokenly.

"Eggsy," Roxy cut in, as Merlin looked at a loss when the younger agent began to become more emotional. "Please come back. We miss you. JB does nothing but sulk around here without you. Your mum and Daisy keep asking about you."

And if Eggsy didn't feel like absolute shite before, of course Roxy and Merlin knew why he was gone, probably most of the remaining Kingsmen too, but his grief had been so all consuming he'd not given much thought to his mother and baby sister in recent weeks. They would be worried about him, rightly so, but it still left him with a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Okay," he exhaled nodding finally, feeling the fight slowly draining out of him. "Alrigh' I'll come home," he concedes. "I'll book a flight soon as I can." Merlin offers to send someone and a Kingsmen jet to collect him in a few hours, but Eggsy shakes his head. "Jus' let me say goodbye, yea', then I'll come back, maybe even see that doc at Kingsmen you recommended-get my head back on straight."

He calls his mum and Dais' after he's disconnected, because maybe he's coming home in a day or two, but he's been worrying them long enough. 

"Eggsy," Michelle answers surprise and worry bleeding through the line, and Eggsy cracks. "Darlin' where are you? We was worried about you, you haven't been 'round in ages."

"I lost 'em, mum," he manages through choked tears.

"What? Whatcha mean, Eggsy, lost who sweetheart?"

"My soulmate. He's dead, mum." There's a sharp intake of breath. "I didn't even figure out it was him until Valentine stole 'im from me. And now everything's starting to fade, an' I just don't know... They can't find his body for me to bury, mum," he continues unable to suppress a soft sob this time. "Too much confusion with the whole world going fuckin' insane at once-"

"Eggsy," his mother edges cautiously, prompting him to immediately fall silent. "I'm so sorry baby, but are you sure your soulmate is dead?"

"I saw it happen mum. He was shot point blank in the head, how could he have lived through that?"

"Well I couldn't tell you that, sweetheart, but it's been weeks since the world went crazy. When I lost your father it only took three days for everything to fade before I couldn't see colors anymore."

"Wha'?" Could that be? Maybe he hadn't found Harry because he had been looking in the wrong places. All this time he'd been checking morgues, looking for a body, when he should have been checking the hospitals. "Mum, I gotta go," the young man said suddenly.

"Eggsy, I don't know anything for sure-" Michelle warned, more than a little concerned hearing her son was so emotional, knowing he was out of her reach to hold and otherwise console.

"I'll call you again tomorrow, yea'," Eggsy replies not really listening.

"Alrigh', take care 'a yourself sweetheart."

"I will," Eggsy promises, and he means to, for the first time in weeks-there's hope again.

"I'm coming Harry," Eggsy whispers to the empty room. "I won't let you down this time," he promises. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

It took an additional and agonizing two days of searching with all the hospitals still being a bit overcrowded with people of varying injuries as a result of V-Day. It took batting his eyes and turning on the charm, inventing a dozen different backstories for who he was to this mystery patient they might be caring for-and god did he fucking hate telling them Harry was his father, but if it got his foot in the door- before he found him.

"I thought we were in agreement about you coming home in the near future. I haven't seen or heard about any return flight plans yet," Merlin reminded him as he picked up the young man's call, before seeming to register what it was he was seeing through Eggsy's glasses. "Fuck is that...? Is he-?" The technician and quartermaster asks, failing to complete any of his queries in his shock.

"They don't usually bother hooking up dead bodies to machines," Eggsy nodded behind the spectacles. "He's alive Merlin, it's why we couldn't find him. He still had papers identifying him as DeVere but we erased that name and paper trail after Valentine shot him so the hospital didn't know who to contact."

"Is he-"

"Just sleepin', nurse 'spects he'll wake soon. And once he gives the doc the go ahead I can get the details of how he's actually doin'. I-" Eggsy hesitated a moment, because of course Merlin was his best friend. Of course he'd want to talk to him too, but Eggsy didn't really want to share Harry's first moments with him when he woke with anyone else.

"Go on then," came Merlin's voice seeming to understand without him needing to articulate it. "I'll see if I can't get into the hospital's database and find out about Mr. DeVere's prognosis and treatment and get some transportation arranged for you both. Tell him I said he's a bastard for scaring us all like that."

"Yea' alright, will do," Eggsy agreed cheerfully, before disconnecting.

Eggsy pulled up a chair beside the bed, gently reaching out and clasping Harry's hand in his own, relishing the warmth of their contact. He was alive, he marveled. Clearly worn, and it seemed pretty likely if he still had some bandages and an uneven and terribly unflattering haircut for the doctors to work around his injury, his escape from death's clutches had not been an easy one. Still, he was here, Eggsy thought watching the slow steady rise and fall of Harry's chest. He'd take it. He'd take whatever Harry was willing to give him even if he was still mad when he saw him.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," Eggsy whispered tearfully. "I know I'm gonna be tellin' you all of this over again when you wake up, bu' I been waiting weeks to say it already. I thought I was going to have to tell it to your casket Harry," he whispered, squeezing the hand he held ever so slightly. "So I don't care if I have to repeat myself if I can actually say it to you."

"I didn' mean it-what I said about my dad. I was just... I wasn't really angry with you," he exhaled heavily. "I just hated that I failed that test, I hated thinking that I disappointed you- you were so proud and had so much faith in me, that's not happened often. I hated that somehow it became so important what you thought 'a me. I was scared Harry. You, whatever this is-" he gestured with his free hand between the two of them. "Terrifies me."

"But I'm not gonna let that stop me, or make me push you away anymore," he promised shaking his head. "I'm not losing you again," this promise as much to himself as the sleeping man beside him. "You have to rest and recover so you can get outta this place, ya' know. You still owe me a dinner, 'guv. And I got a whole host of things I wanna do and try with you, share with you, that you're goin' 'ta need your health and stamina for," he teased with a slightly amused smirk on his face as he looked over the sleeping man's form, before softening, expression growing fond once more. 

"I love you Harry," he confessed, gently bending down to kiss the back of his hand, "I loved you even before I realized you were always meant ta' be the other half of me, and if you're inclined to put up with me, I'll spend the rest'a my life provin' it to you," he breathes, pressing his face against it softly, and eventually falling asleep there waiting for the other man to wake again.

Harry was dreaming of his soulmate again. His face still wasn't all that much clearer to him, but he was sure he could hear him speaking to him this time. He was apologizing, telling him how much he loved him... The voice seemed to act as a kind of soothing balm, calming his anxieties, his aches and pains. It was alright, or at the very least it would be now. His soulmate was here. But of course it ended as all good things must.

But Harry wasn't alone when he finally woke some hours later as he had come to expect and anticipate with the dreams of his soulmate. A young man with dirty blonde and slightly disheveled hair sat slumped over in a chair pulled as close as he could probably get to the bed, clasping his hand, his head resting beside his hip. His physical therapy to help retrain his muscles to respond properly to signals from his brain must have drained him more than he had thought to have not stirred when his visitor had first arrived. And he must know him, the older man reasoned, to keep a vigil like this for him. For the briefest moment something like hope flickered within him, before it was just as quickly extinguished. No, he thought sadly, he was nearing fifty, his soulmate couldn't possibly be this young and beautiful.

He must have unwittingly shifted in some way because in an instant the man he was staring at was sitting bolt upright beaming at him through tear-filled eyes. "Harry!" And Harry feels guilty for the soulmate he can't quite remember, because this boy looking at him like that, that smile- he wants to see it and be the cause of it everyday.

He knows however that he's said or done something wrong when he visibly deflates a moment later at Harry's polite and curious 'hello'.

"You don't know who I am," the young man whispers softly, quietly devastated.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

The young man is quick to tell Harry, that while yes, he should by rights know who he is, that it is alright, that it isn't his fault that he can't remember. But the damage has been done, Harry cannot unsee the beautiful face he'd been admiring absolutely crushed when he hadn't looked at him with the same joy and recognition upon waking, and a part of him aches.

"I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to tell you, and how much you're supposed 'ta remember on your own," he confesses, looking terribly confused and conflicted by the whole situation. He'd moved his chair back a bit and let go of Harry's hand as soon as he realized that he didn't know who he was, probably to avoid making him feel uncomfortable, but Harry found he actually rather missed the contact. He didn't know how best to go about asking for his hand back without making things awkward though. "Suppose I'll have to ask your doc about that-" he speculates. "If you don't mind me talkin' to her that is," the young man adds hastily.

Harry shakes his head. He doesn't remember who this boy is, what they might have been to one another, but some part of him urges him to trust him, and he's apparently decided to listen to it. "I trust you," Harry replies softly. "I couldn't begin to tell you why, but it feels right," he explains shrugging a bit sheepishly at the lame explanation. "I'll make sure my doctor knows she has my permission to speak to you."

Eggsy is both touched, and a little bit more shattered hearing Harry say that he trusts him even if he cannot explain why he does so, even if he still doesn't remember who he is trusting so implicitly.

"I'd like to take you home," Eggsy says softly, before quickly clarifying himself so as not to frighten the already confused older man in the bed beside him. "-To England. Once your doctor clears you, of course. I'm sure you've had reasonably good care here, but they're woefully understaffed to handle a nationwide and global event like V-Day was. We could get you your own private care, and it might help you to remember more if you're surrounded by familiar faces and things."

Harry almost says that he should be a familiar face, and so far he's remembered nothing about the young man, but Harry doesn't think he could bear making him frown again like he had earlier when he'd failed to recognize him. Harry wants to ask what the two of them were to one another but the young man seems to be waiting for something, perhaps he doesn't want Harry to feel pressured or guilty for not recalling their last quickly enough. There is one question he does feel the need to find someway to ask though, before he continues to indulge in any thoughts about how handsome his visitor is.

"A- Do I have any family," he asks cautiously, changing his phrasing a bit less than gracefully, mid-thought. The young man seems to study him for a moment shrewdly, before shaking his head.

"I'm not your son, Harry, if that's what you were trying to ask without actually askin'," he replies with a small rueful sort of smile. Young enough to be, Harry thinks before shoving the thought away to the back of his mind. "That's just what I told the nurses and docs so they would let me in to see you and wouldn't try to kick me our once visiting hours was over." 

Well, that rather put a damper on the possibility of kissing, if the nurses and doctors thought that they were father and son, Harry thought briefly, before catching himself and wondering just where the hell a thought like that came from. Had he had something romantic with this boy before his accident? It might certainly explain why he was so devastated that Harry couldn't remember him.

"I fought with someone," Harry says finally, trying to fill the uneasy silence that seems to have fallen between the two of them. "Before the incident at the church where everything's a bit hazy... That's the last thing that I remember. I had a fight with someone. Someone important," the older man continues, not failing to miss the way the younger man beside him has sat up and taken careful and cautious notice of him and what he's saying, listening intently. "I remember-the emotions better than anything else about it. I was disappointed. And then hurt. And angry. Confused. Then guilty. And sorry... I- I wanted to tell them that I was so sorry, but I had to come here, to that hateful church for some reason. I never got to," he frowned softly, and the boy looks near tears, so maybe they were romantic somehow, Harry thinks.

"I said things I didn't really mean. I was mean. And I shouldn't have left the way I did, but everything is all jumbled up," he concluded pointing to his head. "Was that you," Harry asked curiously.

"...'yea," he admits finally after a moments deliberation. "That was me," Harry's visitor confesses. "Look, I don't know how much of what was said you remember, or if it's just the way the things I said made 'ya feel, none of what was said bears repeating now if you're not burdened but it anymore, but what I made you feel-I didn' mean it either. I was just- lashin' out because I was afraid. I hated myself the minute I said some of those things, even more for thinkin' the last things I'd ever say to you was a bunch of shite."

"It's alright," Harry replies accepting the apology with a shake of his head.

"Nah, not yet, guv," the young man replies, something of a weak smile coming across the corners of his mouth as he speaks. "But I rather like to think it will be one day." Hopefully soon, Eggsy thinks fleetingly as he looks over Harry-his many bandages and injuries, those brown eyes that stare back at him and into his, but without their usual recognition and care in them.

Harry nods, yes, he thinks, that does sound rather nice, he would like that, and on an impulse, he stretches out his arm just enough for his hand to capture the other's, clasping it in his. He briefly offers it a quick, reassuring squeeze, but doesn't let go when his fingers go lax. He can't explain the gesture, but somehow, like trusting him, it feels right, like this is what he's supposed to do, and for the first time since Harry's woken up with him here, the young man smiles softly. And if the boy's eyes are just a little bit watery, well neither of them says anything about it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Bless Merlin, a mere 24 hours later Eggsy and an amnesiac Harry Hart are on a private jet back to London, and Kingsmen's headquarters. There was some debate, which Eggsy had fortunately been ignorant of as to whether or not they should tell Galahad about the organization or the role he had had in it until he'd recently been out of commission. If his memories never returned, some argued, then it stood to reason he might never be the agent or even the man he was before, he might not recall his skills and training, and he might not even be loyal to them and their ideals as he had been before. 

Fucking bullocks of course, Eggsy thought when Merlin finally told him about it, but fortunately the overwhelming majority of the knights voted in Harry's- Galahad's favor. Some even suggested if the man recovered well enough they would support him as the new Arthur, as Merlin made it clear he was only taking on the position temporarily and was much better suited as a handler and training recruits.

Harry spent much of the flight alternatively sleeping and staring out the window, or at least that seemed to be what he wanted Eggsy to think, so the young man made a point of pretending not to notice Harry was actually watching and inspecting the younger man's reflection in the window rather than the sky beyond it. Eggsy couldn't allow himself to become too hopeful that he was remembering anything about him or their relationship; although he'd given Harry blanket permission to ask him anything if he thought he might recall something. For the moment Eggsy did his best to try and convince himself it should be enough the man was still alive. And for the most part it was.

Whatever some of the concerned and dissenting opinions wishing Kingsmen might have thought, Eggsy could still see glimpses of the man who'd plucked him up our of the gutter and taken him under his wing- man he had fallen in love with- when he came to the headquarter's medical bay to visit him each day. It was encouraging, and heartbreaking at the same time every day he came in and wasn't greeted with the same kind of warmth and familiarity he had become accustomed to and longed for. 

Friendliness sure, Harry was always polite and friendly, but those confused brown eyes searching for something in him he just couldn't quite reach was maddening. Merlin had taken to coming and relieving the young man whenever he could. Much as Eggsy tried, seeing Harry like this was a lot more difficult than he liked to admit, or wanted the older man to be aware. It wasn't Harry's fault afterall.

"Congratulations, you get to fly the coop today," Eggsy informs him a few weeks later, the last of Harry's bandages gone and his serious injuries healed up. He would have to continue his physical therapy of course, but Eggsy knows he's been going stir crazy in medical. He's slowly started to regain his memories, though some are still a bit fragmented. He remembers Kingsmen, remembers some of the other knights, and the other day he finally remembered Merlin, but the smile he's offering Eggsy is still no more genial than the ones he gives the nurses and doctor, or anyone else he doesn't know or recall, and it takes some effort for the young man to hide his disappointment.

Logically he knows Valentine neither knew, nor cared for or about one Harry Hart or 'Eggsy' Unwin, but while his plan to devastate the world was on the whole unsuccessful, he's certainly done a number on Eggsy's world as he knew it. He stays and talks with the older man a little while longer, because anything else would be a suspicious change of routine, before taking his leave. He needs to go pack his things.

The best thing for Harry's recovery and to help him remember what he's forgotten is for life to return to what it was before the accident. Eggsy has been living in the older man's house with memories and a ghost these last few months, but tonight Harry's coming home, tonight Eggsy has to finally come to terms with the fact however much it might have felt that way before everything went tits up, his home isn't with Harry. 

It isn't really with his mum an' Daisy either, even in the new house he bought for them and without Dean around. He knows they love him, and he them, but it won't feel like home if he goes back to them. Living with his mum never had the sense of safety that 'home' should have, not in far too many years. But, living with Harry when he cannot remember him and continues to unwittingly break his heart ain't exactly what you'd call safe either. He'll stay at Kingsmen headquarters, just until he figures out a more permeant arrangement. 

"Eggsy," Merlin greets with a nod as they pass each other in the doorway. He nods back, knowing he will be seeing the other man again soon enough later this evening.

"Eggsy," Harry repeats confused when Merlin takes up the chair at his bedside.

"Yes..." Merlin replies cautiously. Has his friend regressed and forgotten some of what he remembered? He seemed to have recognized him...

"Why do you call him that," Harry asked puzzled.

"Well what do you call him," Merlin returned curiously.

"All the nurses and doctors called him Gary," Harry replies still wearing a confused expression, and suddenly Merlin is slapping his forehead in exasperation, with a muttered 'that fucking boy'.

"And he never corrected you." Harry shakes his head, feeling a little guilty for calling him by the wrong name all this time, he'd been in every day to visit him afterall.

"He doesn't use his first name unless it's on official documents or he needs to. Everyone calls him 'Eggsy', and so far as I know that's the only name you've ever used with him or known him by," Merlin explains shaking his head.

"Eggsy," Harry repeats softly, turning the name over in his mind, searching his fractured memories. Eggs, he thought eyes lighting up a little at the realization. He hadn't been asking for eggs. He had been asking for Eggsy when he had woken up. Merlin seems to recognize that he's puzzling something out and gives him a few moments.

"I need to see him," Harry says suddenly, Merlin nods.

"Yes I expect you do. Get dressed and make yourself presentable, I'll have a cab waiting for you at the the shop."


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Eggsy must be a glutton for punishment, it's the only explanation that makes any sort of sense for why he's cooking rather than packing his things right now. Well, that and maybe because he's stalling out the inevitable, walking away from Harry's without knowing whether or not he will ever be coming back to it. 

It's just, well Harry's been away and even if he is well enough to come home, it doesn't mean he won't be tired. Eggsy knows the man can cook, he can't look at the dining room table without remembering his surprise walking down the stairs to a full breakfast and Harry in an apron waiting to serve him. Sure it had in part been instructional, but it was more than that, and had served to reassure him he hadn't ruined everything by kissing the older man the night before. But Eggsy isn't just cooking because he feels like he owes Harry a meal, he genuinely wants to.

Harry's been through so much and Eggsy could only stand by the sidelines and watch, but it isn't pity either. It's love. Eggsy wants to take care of him, for Harry to feel safe, cared for, thought of, and most of all loved; even if Eggsy cannot bring himself to tell Harry while he can't remember who he is. Because however much he might like to, he can't put that kind of pressure and guilt on him.

Eggsy's never been a particularly proficient cook, but he's got a few things he knows how to make well enough to help fill Harry's fridge with some easy pre-made options for him. Nothing probably as fancy or posh as Harry could make, he thinks as he begins washing the dishes he borrowed and tidying up the kitchen, but enough to make him feel as though he helped, too soothe that part of him that just wants to wrap his arms around Harry and never let him go. 

He will just finish cleaning up his mess, he'll pack up his things, then he'll leave. And maybe he'll ask Merlin for a long mission somewhere far from here to get a little distance. Maybe if he stays away long enough the fact that he can see color again, as brightly as he ever did, but can't thank or be with the man who's responsible won't feel like it's slowly killing him anymore.

Speak of the devil, Eggsy thinks as his glasses chirp from where he has set them down on the counter. But no, in fact it's the handler's other half.

"I thought you wanted him to remember who you were," Roxy accuses when Eggsy finally manages to answer her call.

"I do," the younger man replies defensively. More than anything, he thinks sadly.

"Then forgive me for being dim, but why does Merlin tell me you have had Harry calling you Gary since you found him again, when not even your own mother calls you that?"

"Aw c'mon Rox' he's your soulmate, and I know you two 'ave slept together at least once by now with those eyes you give each other. Merlin can't be his real name, now can it, too much of a coincidence he'd get into an organization that uses names from the Arthur legends," Eggsy replies trying his best to change the subject and dodge her question.

"Harry is _your_ soulmate," she returns un-phased, completely ignoring his response and keeping the conversation focused on him. "So why wouldn't you tell him how much you hate your first name?"

"Because I thought maybe it would hurt a little less 'im not knowing who I was if he called me somethin' else, alright Rox," he admits finally.

"No, it isn't alright, but maybe now it can be. Merlin set him straight after he ran into you leaving medical today, says he thinks Harry may have remembered something he'd forgotten, because the man was immediately insistent he needed to see and speak to you, apparently he's just left the shop."

"Whot," Eggsy manages stunned, because that means that the older man is minutes, not hours away from being home as he had anticipated, he redoubles his efforts and finishes cleaning the counter he'd been wiping up in record time.

"Just tell him the truth, Eggsy," she interrupts before he can start sputtering or well and truly panic about the fact he isn't going to be gone from the house as planned before Harry will be returning home again. "All of it. Maybe he will remember, maybe he won't, but stop lying to him, you aren't protecting or doing either of you any favors by it. The worst that can happen is he doesn't ever remember and you just make new memories together, right?"

"Right," she supplies not bothering to wait for him to respond to her question. "Good pep talk, now I have to go get on a plane for a mission I can't tell you about yet, so make up and have lots of fantastic sex with the soon-to-be new boss, and get yourself made a knight by the time I get back and we can swap stories. I'll see you soon," she offers by way of goodbye before hanging up.

Roxy's advice rings in Eggsy's ears, and rings true for that matter, but it seems as though every time that Eggsy thinks there might be a chance-for him to be happy-or more recently, for him and Harry, it seems like it's ripped away from him. He's like an abused animal, cowering in the corner, just lying in wait to be kicked or beaten even when they've escaped the violence and found themselves a good home, tender care, and love. He doesn't trust it.

What did love ever do for him, Eggsy thinks even as he packs up more of his clothes he's has strewn about the guest room he's been occupying. It just made him more vulnerable, let people in so they could eventually leave or disappoint and hurt him in ways no one else could, he thought with a frown as he zipped up his duffel.

"Eggsy," Harry calls softly from the doorway, and _**Jesus** , when the fuck had he got in? And more importantly how had he not noticed or heard him_\- official position notwithstanding- Eggsy was a _goddamned spy_ , and a _good_ one. If Harry notices that he jumped, he makes no comment about it. "Eggsy, please don't go," the older man pleads, as Eggsy slowly turns around to face him.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

" _'_ Arry," Eggsy whispers, nearly choking on the name for all the emotion that accompanies it as he slowly drags his blue-green eyes up to meet those fathomless brown ones he's come to love so much. They look clearer, more determined than he's seen in all the times visiting him while Harry was recovering. The healed but still very present scar by his left eye and covering his right temple is still easy to spot even as his hair has begun growing back which he's made an obvious attempt to style in order to help cover it. 

He looks handsome, although to Eggsy's mind he always has, it's nice to see him in something besides hospital wear or a robe though. It's going to make leaving that much harder. He knows he's going to get an earful from Roxy, and maybe Merlin will try to fight him on giving him a job somewhere far from HQ, from the shop, from Harry, but every day hoping he will remember, only to be crushed when he doesn't- it's slowly eating away at him, and these days it isn't even that slow of a process. He's losing a little more of himself every day this nightmare continues.

"Please Eggsy-," the older man begins to repeat once more.

"Stop callin' me that," Eggsy snaps, snatching up his bag from where it was laying atop the newly made up bed. Not because he had ever been a particularly neat person, but Harry had a place for everything and everything in it's place. A place for everything, except him. "You don't remember," Eggsy chokes softly. "None of it," he whispers shaking his head, eyes watering with tears in spite of himself. 

"You look like 'im, you act like 'im, but all you can remember 'bout us is that fight before you left an' all the stupid shite I said to you," the younger man continues. "I didn't mean any of it. Regretted it as soon as it was out of my mouth, didn't I? And it's the only damn thing 'ya can remember about me. You ain't my Harry," he whispers softly as the tears finally spill over. "Maybe you never actually was mine, but I can't stay here. I want to, I tried, but I- I can't," he shakes his head again. "If you feel anything at all for me, don't ask me to, please," he requests, slowly bringing his gaze back up to meet the man standing in his way, blocking the doorway.

"But I can't just let you leave, Eggsy," Harry replies finally with a small frown on his face looking down at him where he stands waiting for the older man to step aside. Eggsy lets out a sob at his words that threatens to break him, that makes Harry just want to snatch him up into his arms and hold him, and never let him go. "I still owe you dinner," he concludes simply.

Eggsy who had been contemplating just how to get Harry to move the fuck out of his way without injuring him, freezes. Every muscle that had been tensed in "flight" instinct, ready to spring into action has locked up, he feels like even his lungs have stopped drawing breath, his heart stopped beating, because there is only one way that the older man could know to say that, could know that something as little as the promise of a meal might be enough to hold him here; because Roxy might think he's been thick, but she wouldn't have told Harry, hadn't told anyone about the last message Eggsy had received from his mentor and soulmate.

"Harry," Eggsy whispers softly, voice shaking slightly, and sounding wrung out. 

"Eggsy, my darling boy," Harry replies tenderly, one hand slowly- slow enough that Eggsy could stop him if he really wanted to-drifting up to cup his cheek in his palm. "I am so sorry," he whispers, his own voice trembling a bit more than it's usual steady and patient timbre. "Forgive me."

The please is implied, but unnecessary, as Eggsy shake his head. Harry doesn't need to ask for Eggsy's forgiveness, because he's already given it. Even in his desperation to flee from the pain being around him without being able to have him caused, he had never blamed Harry, and he'd long forgiven him for the things said in the hear of the moment when they had fought in that tiny bathroom what seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Eggsy lets the duffel he was carrying drop to the floor, and moments later is propelling himself the few extra feet forward to close the gap between the two of them, arms wrapping around Harry so tightly it would have been painful if his bruised and cracked ribs from the fight at the church had not healed already.

Harry lets his chin come to rest atop Eggsy's head, before softly burrowing his nose into his hair, inhaling him as his arms wrap back around the shorter and younger man.

"You owe me dinner somewhere really fuckin' nice, you know that don't you," Eggsy mumbles into the buttons of his shirt, unable to pull himself away just yet, not even far enough to meet Harry's eyes again. He can feel Harry's chuckle vibrate through him, anchoring him as he squeezes tighter for just a moment, reassuring him that this is real, and renewing his determination to make sure this time, nothing takes the older man away or gets between them-not even the air in the room.

"I love you," Eggsy declares, and it's too soon, he knows it is, Harry's only just now remembering him, but Eggsy was beginning to doubt whether he would ever be able to say those words to him, and now he has to. For one terrifying instant before Harry says anything the young man thinks that perhaps this is it: that moment that always comes whenever he has stolen minutes of happiness like this, the herald of it being ripped away again.

But then Harry is gently lifting his chin up ever so slightly higher with a finger before swooping down to kiss him, and it's everything like Eggsy has been dreaming about for months now. Both familiar and new, and gentle, and passionate; and Eggsy can't breathe again, but he doesn't care, because this is the best reason for a lack of oxygen he could possibly think of. And then Harry's pulling back, but only an inch or two, and just for a moment to meet his eyes so Eggsy can watch as he echoes the sentiment.

"I love you too."


	20. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Tumblr's #HartwinWeek (Aug. 16-22, 2015)  
> Title refers to the song "Colors" by Amos Lee
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

Merlin and Roxy both congratulate the pair of them for finally getting their shit together, and the fact that Eggsy nearly missed Harry, missed all of this, because his aching heart had determined leaving would hurt less- doesn't come up. But they're both spies, so they probably already know, or will figure it out eventually.

The fact of the matter is though, that while the world had done it's very best to end with Valentine's scheme a few months back, there's always someone or other to pick up the mantle of crazy the mogul has left behind. And Kingsmen's newly appointed Galahad hasn't been field-tested since receiving his designation. So while the pair undoubtably need and deserve a little honeymoon period the mission Eggsy is assigned the following day simply cannot be helped; dinner will just have to wait.

Or- maybe not, because Harry Hart, the crazy old bastard that he is, is going too, and somehow manages to secure a table for them at a little restaurant after their mission is completed just outside of Florence that requires reservations months in advanced and features items on the menu Eggsy's never even heard of.

Harry helps him order, and it's quaint, quiet, and the perfect way to celebrate their mission being a success, both of them walking away without any new bulletholes or scars, and the two of them being together. And it is, as Eggsy had requested 'really fucking nice'. 

And to the young man's surprise so are the next few dozen that follow after. Having been promoted to the new Arthur means Harry can't always be spared to accompany his protege on missions-it is a rather large risk afterall for the head of the organization to be out in the field, possibly getting shot at. But the older man still finds the time and makes a point of celebrating each and every job Eggsy comes back from with dinner. 

Whether they are a success or not, doesn't seem to be of import, so much as the fact Eggsy comes back. After months lost, Harry is determined to appreciate and savor every moment they have together, even if it means he's cooking or ordering something special to bring to his grumbling lover in medical while they patch him up, or he recovers from an injury.

Michelle Unwin is understandably less than thrilled the first time Harry accompanies Eggsy to a family dinner. Harry can't really blame her though, he knows all her objections, many of which he's thought of and worried about himself, but much as he had done, she seems eventually come to the same conclusion that her baby boy isn't a baby anymore, and is going to make his own decisions whether anyone agrees and understands them or not. 

Harry thinks she probably still hasn't forgiven him for pulling her son into the same dangerous life that stole her mate from her too soon, but no one will look out for and protect Eggsy and fiercely as he does. And after several family dinners together it seems she's finally coming around to the idea that Eggsy loves Harry nearly as much as the older man loves him, and they make one another happy. 

Daisy on the other hand, much to Eggsy's chagrin, takes to Harry immediately; even faster than she had done even with Merlin and Roxy. The little girl wastes no time at all in dragging him over for tea parties with her dolls and princesses whenever he visits, which Harry is happy to oblige. 

Eggsy was never sure about kids. He loved them, was great with them. He'd long adored and guarded his sister as if she were his own little girl, in some senses she was while their mum was with Dean. But he couldn't do that, bring a child into his life while it was the mess that it was; while he was still stuck in council flats, could he? And having one of his own likely would have meant trusting another person, letting them in. He made that mistake once with Dean, back when he still gave a damn about trying to make a good impression. After he'd turned out to be a total waste... 

But Harry was different, once he'd finally let him in. Oh Harry hurt him, worse and in ways that no one ever had, but never on purpose, and he did make him happy-exquisitely so. More than anyone ever had. And what do you know? The man was great with kids, _loved_ them. And now he was Arthur and stayed at home more... Well, maybe that particular dream wasn't so distant or impossible as he had thought it was once. Maybe, just maybe Eggsy can have all the dreams he'd given up on, keep the happiness he's always thought of as stolen.

A few months later Harry Hart's name appears in the paper for the second time in his life, just beside Gary "Eggsy" Unwin in the wedding announcements section. It was a small ceremony, marked by few, but attended by most of the Kingsmen, Michelle Unwin; and young Daisy is agreed to be the best and most beautiful flower girl they could have asked for. 

Eggsy thinks it's a good omen of things to come that despite the odds the world manages not to go tits up halfway trough the service dragging their guests away. Somehow the world doesn't have call for Galahad or Arthur until they've had three days for their honeymoon. Harry doesn't bother to tell him that's mostly Merlin's doing, but Eggsy probably suspects as much anyway.

Eggsy cuts out the article and small photo of them both, taping it up with pride: the first of a lifetime of clippings to decorate his own office walls. And Harry is wrong, because his name appears a third time in the paper, and for the second time beside Eggsy's, but to announce another's birth rather than his death: one Oliver Unwin-Hart, two blissful years later. And Eggsy's and Harry's life is again, and remains for many happy decades a riot of lively and beautiful colors.


End file.
